Just Around the Bend

I love riding the bike. I love the bike. Its pristine black shiny frame. The spare spokes that I actually swiped with a cloth the other day. Rims. Gear thingies. Its utter bikeness.

I'm pretty sure all bikes look the same. I'm pretty sure that if I show my new bike to someone they see, "bike". After all, that's what it is. I was gonna say "that's all it is" and I caught myself. If that was all it was then I would not be tapping these keys right now.

Bike is an unfolding metaphor.

I say unfolding--no, it's not one of those collapsible bikes--because I am already sensing that its meaning in my life today is not what it was a month ago, and not what it will be six months from now. Oh sure, bike is vehicle. Vehicle is how I get myself from here to there (although when I am there is has become the new here so did I actually transport myself? or the Universe? Ouch. See how cosmic this contraption has already become!

So I headed up Arastradero Road today--the entire length. It is actually something I have done in the reverse direction with some glee. Glee is that emotion that I have noticed accompanies the act of pedaling at alarming rates downhill. Glee is not the emotion I experienced pedaling up Arastradero Road this afternoon, although in subsequent conversation with John at the Men's Group tonight he pointed out to me that many fellow cyclists actually experience more glee going up hills than down. Some of that may be attributed to another emotion that arises when experienced cyclists ascend increasingly steep slopes only to descend at increasingly alarming speeds, thus inducing more a sensation of fear than glee. In my short time in this avocation I have had tastes of that, previously noted.

So I was heading up Arastradero Road today, and perceived a slow and steady climb. "This is good," I most certainly sensed at some level. This is good. Pumping. Changing gears. Pumping hard. Changing gears again. Again. Until there were no more gears to escape to. Until a heaviness descended upon my legs, a pain to be sure, as deep labored breaths clamored for oxygen that seemed so plentiful only minutes before.

This is hard. I must remember this when I enter my biking log on MapMyRun.com tonight. The entire ride may not be hard, but this climb--this puny climb--is a real challenge. Visions of photos of last year's bike event flashed through my head. Panoramas stretching out for miles. Nothing but sand and sun and a serpentine stripe of asphalt going only one way--up. A quote from the promotional video is stuck in my head. "This was the most physically taxing undertaking I have ever experienced," or words to that effect.

And here I am on this puny little hill on a breezy balmy afternoon struggling with every rotation of my granny gear. I got some work to do!

I am developing a modicum of patience. I am willing to take on incrementally longer and more challenging rides. I am willing to watch my self grow in physical and psychological mettle. And gratefully I am willing to stop the bike on several occasions to catch my breath. That's the only sane thing to do. Of what benefit would it be to keep pushing to the brink of collapse or beyond it?

At one such stop I pulled out one of the dozen or so nutritional organic energy bars I stocked up on yesterday at the Country Sun--our local health food emporium. I got one of practically every brand. I'll try 'em. I 'll see which one combines best nutrition and taste. Well this first coconut almond bar was ambrosia. Each crunchy bite exploded with texture and flavor on my tongue--the absolute best morsel I have ever eaten in my life! Now it is possible that this was a result of simply being hungry. Yesterday, at Country Sun I took a small sample from a basket--a bread stick of sorts. All organic whole grain crunchy goodness. It was thin and brown, It had a marked snap. There were crystals of sugar on the surface. There were half burned currants embedded in it. There was, objectively little to recommend this, yet I thought most clearly that this was the absolute best morsel I had ever eaten in my life! Imagine--two days in a row!

Later, in the evening I shared this bread stick delicacy with Debbie, and neither of us could replicate the sensation I had earlier. We concluded that I must have been particularly hungry in the store. -Then again, maybe it had little to do with hunger and more to do with consciousness. The kind of consciousness that can make an uphill climb anathema to one and delight to another.

Oh yeah--"just around the bend"--the title of this piece. Well I could stop here and retitle the post, but I do want to remember the metaphor of "the bend". We were having a conversation about hope, despair, cynicism, skepticism--the usual light banter for a Thursday evening. I told the guys that as much as I find hope a pitiful illusion at times I also have found myself on occasion clinging to it in desperation. (That's a telling oxymoron!)

As I was pedaling a long slow climb this afternoon I looked ahead at the bend in the road and with no evidence to support such a notion I immediately allowed myself to believe that the road would surely crest at that turn. All I had to do was make it to the bend ahead and it would be downhill from there. That encapsulates the sinister deception of hope. You, reading this with a rational mind already sense the disappoint I would experience upon discovering that the turn in no way signalled an end to climbing.

The mind of an optimist is rarely defeated. After taking a little breather I hopped back on my magnificent machine thinking, "Next time I'll know better."

We'll see.