Five in the morning finds me pedaling furiously, my legs burning and the cold air shearing against my skin. It is nearly thirteen miles from my shitty apartment to the train station and I am almost to the Micheltorena overpass, a bridge across the mighty one-oh-one freeway that constantly hums with the sound of traffic.

The squeal of brakes brings me to my senses. Ahead of me a biker cuts off a rusting Ford in crosstraffic - the car screeches to a halt just in time, nearly bouncing the biker off of the front bumper. The biker turns in his saddle and in a single motion gives the driver the finger.

"EHHFUCK YOU!" screams the biker before dropping back to his handlebars and continuing past me down the street, his eyes gleaming in an ironic mixture of fear and triumph.

Then something absolutely wild happens.

The driver crosses the empty intersection, swings his car around two hundred and seventy degrees and charges down the road towards me with his high beams on and horn blaring. The biker turns his head to see the oncoming car and lets loose with a string of curses, the boldness in his voice replaced by fear. Five secons later the car passes me and I can hear the driver screaming "YOU WANNA FUCK WITH ME? HUH?" over the roar of the engine as he bears down on the condemned biker, who nearly hits a parked car in his haste to exit the road.

I do not stop.

Before turning the corner to the overpass I take a look behind me and see the biker shielding himself behind his bike, illuminated by blinding headlights, trapped in a hostile triangle consisting of a dumpster, a tree and the hood of the angry driver's car.

The day is still young.