Today turned out to be an eventful day. After going to bed late due to the Corporate 5K festivities, the last thing I wanted to do this morning was bike 15+ miles to work. We had a photo/video shoot scheduled with FDOT, which is the main reason I didn't back out of the ride. It turned out to be a gorgeous and cool morning and we had a great ride, until we got pulled over about a mile away from UCF and cited for impeding traffic.
I am not going to go into details, because this post is not about what happened, but how I handled it. I remembered how terrified and anxious I was the first time we rode alone down University Blvd; I almost had a nervous breakdown. I have been lucky until this point to not be with Jason the other times he got pulled over, and I thought I would be super anxious and scared if we ever got pulled over when I was with them. I didn't think I would know what to do or how to act, but I was wrong.
Not only was I really calm and not at all anxious, but I took part in the conversation with the officer instead of slinking away in the background and letting Jason handle it. I was confident that we were operating safely within the law and was not afraid to stand up for our rights. I'm sure I could have articulated some things better, but I feel I did the best I could under the circumstances at explaining our position and not backing down when it meant compromising our group's safety.
I've come a long way from the terrified gutter bunny who would not dare ride on the rode without Jason buffering me from traffic. I am a lot more confident now about my place on the rode, how to drive my bike safely with or without Jason :) I have Cycling Savvy to thank for empowering me to drive my bike on the road, but becoming a Cycling Savvy Instructor was the last puzzle piece that I was missing and why things went so well today. Not only am I a savvy cyclist, but having to teach others to do the same further empowers me and gives me the confidence to handle situations like this.
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