So, as reported earlier, I bought this folding bike, and it’s 30 pounds, so pretty heavy compared to the sirrus I’m used to carrying around on one arm.

To get to my apartment, I have to climb a flight of stairs adjacent to two other apartments. Tonight one of my new neighbors (I moved recently) opened the door to let someone in from outside (not me! I swear) and saw me lugging this folded bundle of bike upstairs.

“A little cold to be riding bikes, huh?” she asks me.

I’m sort of taken aback and say, “Huh?”

“Isn’t it a little cold to be out riding bikes?”

For perspective, I’m wearing a wool coat, black tights and a knit dress. I feel like I’m dressed pretty appropriately for 49 degrees (even if it feels like 43, according to my friends at weather.com).

“… um … not really … ” wound up being my response.

Which was probably a jerk thing to say, but riding a bike to me is so second-nature, her question sounded as ridiculous as someone asking me, “Don’t you think November is a little bit cold for driving a car?” or “Isn’t fall just a little chilly to be just walking around outside with a coat on?”

I should have just said, “Oh, I ride my bike year-round, it’s a main form of transportation for me,” but I was just so stunned (and I was tired and in the middle of lugging 30 pounds of aluminum and rubber up a flight of narrow stairs and her tone just sounded so haughty) that I didn’t think to say it.

Next time I’ll be nicer. Promise.

Still, that interaction probably put the brakes (har har) on any friendship with the new neighbor. I’ll roll (ugh, allison) with it.

So now I’m about to go running. Probably too cold for that too. (And so dark!)