Noun you tell me. Or, my first time ever being called "Bitch." To my face, anyway.

I used the word "chicane" today. Correctly. It doesn't mean the same as chicanery, which means fooling or cheating someone. Most of you have experienced a chicane when you wait on the security line at the airport. It's that place where you go back and forth and slowly approach where you're trying to get. My first time hearing the word was on ABC's Wide World of Sports, where from time to time they would show bobsledding for the famous Cresta Run in St. Moritz, where are all of the turns had names. Chicane was a rapid back and forth, leading up to the feared Shuttlecock curve, which was always the most exciting part of the run, just because a racer's chance of getting through it without flying off the track  and into a big pile of hay bales were about 50-50.

That has little to do with riding a bike in Florida, which is what I did today. I've been doing this every day. The roadside bike trails here are as nice as any you'll see- smooth and uninterrupted all 10 miles from Key Biscayne to the mainland. It's an absolute pleasure to ride on, even on a crappy hybrid rental bike (my bike this time isn't nearly as crappy as last time- at least all the gears work). The only problem is the other riders, who are almost universally rude. I'm not sure why the code about announcing yourself when you're passing someone is ignored here. I guess it's not exactly a code- it's more like guidelines. But anywhere you ride in the east, if someone is going to pass you they say "on your left" so you know to hold your line and not take that moment to get a drink.

Maybe it's because the bike lanes are too nice, but 99% of riders here see no need to do this, and some of them cut close enough that even a slight change of direction would cause us both to crash. I mean, how hard is it to be considerate? Okay, I'm a human being in 2017. It seems it's generally a lot of effort to be considerate, but it's no excuse.

I put up with it because the flat, smooth ride takes you through mangroves and then on a causeway connecting Key Biscayne to Virginia Key to the mainland. There are spots on the causeway with pretty spectacular views of Miami and Miami Beach and, today at least, a half dozen massive cruise ships parked in between.

Ever since I've been doing this I wondered why so many cyclists turned off onto this road on Virginia Key. What could be out there, I wondered? (Not sure if that's correct punctuation) The sign only says "Water Treatment Plant."  So I decided to follow a group and passed a mile of parking lots, ending with one large one full of cars with bike racks. People weren't actually going there, they were just coming back to their cars. Plus to add to the enjoyment, a car passed me and someone yelled out the window "Keep peddling bitch." I'm not sure what he meant by that. Of course I was going to keep peddling. I was on a bicycle. That's the way they move. But with that encouragement, I reached the end of the access road.

If it wasn't the destination I had in mind, at least I saw there was a mountain biking area next to the parking lot. Now this is absurd on its face. There isn't even a hill within 200 miles of here, much less a mountain. But I decided to enter anyway just to see. One of the advantages of the crappy rental bike is that it's able to do things that your own beloved bike could never do, like ride in the sand. Kind of like the way rental cars are able to handle speed bumps without your having to slow down. I entered someplace labeled "Novice Trail."

I've never mountain biked. They have a lot of it in Lake Placid. I've heard that biking down a novice ski slope is absolutely terrifying. It sounds like fun but I'm too cautious a rider to really enjoy it. Here, lacking a mountain, they make do with trees and, I'm sure you were wondering when it I'd get to it, a chicane. The trail is in a 100 foot square of pine trees with a narrow path roped off where you make one 180 degree turn after another. The only challenge is that the path is only about a foot wider than the handlebars, so if you don't hit the turn right, your handlebars hit a tree and you either fall or put your feet down, which I what I did the couple of times it happened. After about 5 minutes of that silliness I escaped. Getting buzzed by other cyclists again was a relative pleasure.