Tail Tucked

We did a nice ride along the golf course again today. The plan had been to scout out and route from our apartment to Starbucks, but alas we missed the road. On our way back through we did do a quick jaunt up the road to check out how hilly it is. It may prove a formidable opponent for me although Llama seemed to take it in stride. I was proud to make it up the steepest of our hills, at a snail's pace of course, but whatever works. Unfortunately shortly after making it up the steepest part and crossing the railroad tracks I was startled by someone beeping behind me. A quick glance assured me that the anger was directed at a fellow motorist. This made me feel much better for about 3.5 seconds, at which point I felt my tires plop down into that weird cement area on the edge of the road. I'm assuming this particular part of the road serves as a type of gutter. It's only about a foot wide and though I can ride in there I don't like it. This time however I was already rattled by the honking and I tried to jerk out instead of waiting until the blacktop was not 2 inches higher than the cement. My front tire skidded sideways along the blacktop instead of up and over just as a car was passing. I ended up on my feet, astride the bike, in the traffic lane. Clearly I'm fine, but I was pretty rattled. So between that and the "killer" hill, I found myself nauseous yet again and pulling over to collect myself. Llama came back for me, gave me some water and moral support and then we walked up the sidewalk for several minutes. I gotta say, there is just not much that ruins a bike ride for me more than having to walk any stretch of it for any reason. It pisses me of and makes me feel like crap and basically destroys any and all self esteem I may have built up up to that point in the ride. So I ended up coming home feeling a bit like I had my tail between my legs. There's always the next time!