Where was I? Oh...coping with earthlife issues. I was off the bike for a while and have returned to my senses. One week off is no problem, a few cobwebs, but you're right back in the game. Two weeks off and the decay begins in earnest. I guess I've learned over the years to try and never go more than two weeks without riding, it's just too brutal to work back into it, especially as I ripen.
When I would find myself in that situation I would have to go through what I call a "purification ride" to get back into the fold. About twenty miles in on such a ride I would find myself in that world between the living and the dead. I would then have to make a decision whether to seek out the light of cycling bliss, or the alternative, doing anything other than cycling.
I guess I've always gone to the light. Even years ago when a large group of my friends defected, and began motocross riding, I stayed true. Yes, and even though a close personal friend recently revealed her disdain for my endurance cycling adventures and in a nutshell said that riding that long and far was "stupid and unhealthy", I choose cycling.
I don't take offense to such remarks, I know she just doesn't understand it all.
I found the following letter an unknown author posted somewhere years ago. I kept it and share it with you now. Take care
Why We Bicycle--
We are people in otherwise responsible positions with predictable lives in which we are used to
guiding events to our will, who now repeatedly subject ourselves to the elements, forces of nature
and hard realities of riding at the edge of the envelope of our abilities, physical powers and
endurance in a chaotic and not really predictable or controllable situation together. There is a
reason. We have found that reason.
We can talk about the activism of the cycling experience: our ancestors for thousands of years
derived their existence from "the hunt" in which they exposed themselves to the rigors and
dangers of the natural, unknown and unpredictable world.
We can talk about worship: the sheer beauty of the natural world in which God speaks to us in the
universal language of sun and day, wind and waterfall, and touches our soul.
We can talk about the physical challenges our bodies were made to meet and are missing in our
daily lives. The opportunity to push oneself beyond ones known powers and skills, and the cleansing
simplicity of maximum effort.
We can talk about energy expenditure: feeling the recoil of our hearts pounding at 180, pumping
20 quarts a minute through our dilated capillaries, our lungs taking in 20 gallons of frosty air and
expelling 20 gallons of vapor a minute, steam rising from our beaded sweaty naked legs into the
frosty air.
We can talk about the simplicity of a single task in our otherwise complicated lives.
We can talk about bonding: in this age, which abounds in lack of trust and honor, we rest
comfortable and sure in the knowledge that no matter what happens to any one person or piece of equipment, we will get through this together and come out together and share whatever
knowledge and skill and material we have to do it, and solve problems together, like a tire iron
and duct tape splint for a dislocated thumb.
We can talk about fear: and meeting it in a direct and simple fashion when the rest of our lives
have indirect and amorphous not really confrontable fears.
We can talk about focus: on the downhill. the absolute necessity to eliminate distractions, mental
diversions and lack of focus in which we normally live our daily lives and focus entirely on what
we are doing.
We can talk about spilling blood and it's cleaning effect of washing us free of the fear of our
mortality and of death that makes us hide from life.
We can talk about the transcendental experience: the inner calm that comes when we have our weight back and loose on the screaming downhill and the bike is everywhere in front of and below us,
our eyes and muscles communicating and adjusting faster than we can think, adapting to the
events that come faster than any conscious mind can respond, and yet we are floating loose and
still and free and calm in the midst of chaos- totally free as we cannot remember ever being free.
It is moments like these that make up the very substance of life itself. But when you talk about
this with your friends, they will look at you a little funny. They will not understand. They will try to
dismiss these experiences, which cannot be surrounded by words, which do not fit words, and
which cannot be understood through words. But nothing can compare to the doing of it, you
just have to do it.
