Thinking It’s True Doesn’t Make It So

While riding home on a lazy Sunday afternoon – with cottagers in more of a rush to get home than we were – following too close, unsafe passing, you know what I’m talking about – I learned a valuable lesson from my friend Tim.

Tim is an experienced rider, and I learned, also a good teacher. We’d been riding all day and weren’t in any hurry to get home, but homebound we were.

The traffic was steady and moving just over the speed limit. Tim noticed I followed cars a bit too close and sometimes didn’t leave enough space for an unplanned stop.

“You’re riding as if you don’t have a worry in the world. That’s not the way to think about it,” Tim said, during a break. “If you’re ill-prepared, instead of being at your best when you need to be, you’re more likely to panic. To stay safe, you have to expect trouble at any moment.

“When you think about