The Intangible.

Slow days at work put me In a state of malaise and deep introspection, I sit feeling un/underutilized like a luxury sports girl used only to run errands…wasting. I wrestle between desiring full utilization and living a bohemian nonconformist life style, do I press to be a CEO and control the destiny of others or sell all I have buy a VW Westiva and drive cross country biking and skiing whatever my pleasure. Both options contain room for doubt and discontent. Deliverance at such times come in a slow long ride (SLR). I punched out early, bundles up and rolled out for a lumpy, windy, slow spring ride on an overcast 45degree day. 

  

Irons mountain remains my second favorite place in the world, the beauty of that place hunts and hugs me simultaneously. It is an ode to the solitude usually required for such beauty and the urban infrastructural cost (lack of). I love to drive up that mountain on my lunch break and watch the turkey vultures soar, jib and juke with the thermals as the rise out of the adjoining valley. The ride to the top was tasking to put it lightly, my legs were flat and instead of ruminating on my thoughts and figuring out the world’s problems, I was wrestling the mountain gradient, mentally struggling not to abort, point my front wheel downhill and do what ever thinking I had hoped for in front of a TV set. I suppose there are some climbs great for getting in a zone, where the body goes into autopilot, churns out the miles liberating the mind to think and there are others where all faculties (physical and mental) are summoned to maintain forward momentum. 

   

 

Lately I have been working on relocating to Nigeria, there is so much to look forward to, and so much to miss in that one decision. Endless sunny days to ride, a slower pace of life and community alien to western living where you actually know your neighbor beyond the once in month hello exchanged as you walk out to get the Sunday paper.  There is however the price paid in the forfeit of some level of comfort: Mosquitos with teeth, insecurity, lack of snow and winter sports, state parks, the vibrant Appalachian mountains in the Fall. This was what I was chewing over on this ambitious ride for someone with Spring leggs I have taken many a long rides intent on sifting through the fog, to convincingly articulate to myself the reason I am really trying to move there, many times I end with more questions than answers. 

  

Grinding up Warrior mountain, on the section with a steady 7% grade, it becomes clear, the answer is “the intangible” that which can not be quantified, can’t be articulated, qualities like providence, destiny, serendipity. The intangible if the anchor that keeps one commited to a resolve when all fails. The enigma however is that we seek to unravel the intangible, to clearly articulate and bring to the light the ethos of our motivation, but we fail every time. I guess we have to keep going on those Slow Long Rides. 

Spring… Again…

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As spring arrives, so do many awesome blog posts and pictures; proses of returning blossoms, chirps, single track and adventures planned. All things I happily welcome and rely on to atune me to the new season. However, we fail or choose not to remember the dog-days of summer, those days when the Mercury climbs over 85 and humidity above 65 percent, days in which we longinly look to POW days of carving “S’es” in the white fluffy stuff. How easily we forget. 

The point of this is not to be a “downer”, it just that this year, the budding leaves and returning sparrows break my heart a little bit. Recently, a situation in which I was faithless worked out in a such a way that God’s faithfulness was unquestionable, the solution was like the inevitability of Spring; no matter how bad winter was someday blades of grass will again bask in the noon sun and birds will sip nectar from the open flower petals. This begs the question, why do I continues to doubt, the spring days with its scents, the summer days when the earth yields the greatest hero dirt and the fall days with the majesty of the trees fully dressed is on display. I forget the cycle of life and the ruler who orchestrated it all. 

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So I look forward to the captivating tales of adventures and maladventures, the pictures of carpeted rolling hills, warming streams and melting mountain tops and the prompting of the Holy Spirit gently whispering… This too will pass…

Point of no return…

Too late to turn back now….

when skiing with friends much better than me, we always come to the point where the blue and black diamond trails no longer satisfy them, the logical next step in a double black or glade skiing. I am forced to decide to take the plunge and thread the needle; though the trees or ride in between and over the mine field of knee high moguls. Many times 15 yards down the steep I can abort, hike back up, ski across to a tamer trail, or gracelessly exit the glades (there have been cases where I took off my skis and hiked to the button to the amusement of onlookers. However, there is always the point of no return, that point where it is impossible to hike back to the top or pizza it to the bottom.Where you must muster all your courage and go for it.  It is at times like these that we come face to face with our inner strength. In these times we realize that no one else matters but us and what we think aboutourselves and our effort. At such times, due to the inability to guarantee success the most important thing is effort; doing the best we can to achieve our set goal. 

wipeout and we will laugh.

Many times, a difficult trails runs right under the lift line, so if you wipe out you end up being entertainment for everyone. This stops many people from attempting runs they would like to try, businesses they would like to open, vocations they would like to answer. You would be surprised by how many adults who do not know how to ride a bicycle but are afraid of what people would say or think when they see them practice. When you reach that point of no return, survival sits higher on your scale of preference as compared to avoiding embarrassment. 

Your Turn !!

Sitting on the ski lift at White Tail ski resort for some winderful springish skiing, I realize I am slowly inching towards that point of no return in my personal life. It feels exciting and scary, I can’t stay where I am but making the move somewhere else is daunting and scary. Soon it will be too late to turn back. I would love to nail this run but there’s also a good chance of a wipeout. 

Let’s go…

Get off the front.



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The first time I did the Seagull Century was my first time riding with thousands of other riders in the same event. The riders came in all shapes, sizes and configurations and the whole mass was most organic, riders jived and bounced in response to one another and the staccato of gear shifts rattling through the peloton was most surreal. Riders came in a myriad of categories : the “pro-isk” guys with matching kits, shaved legs, riding $6000 bikes and shooing any peasant mortal who dared to sit on their wheel, there’s the strongman type with leg hair the lenght of James Hardins beard and leg muscles the size of a babies head, the tri guys in their singlets and bikinis seemingly poured over their aero bars sucking some unnaturally colored fluid from their strawed sippy cup . It was a concuction of various styles, sizes and abilities. The group I want to talk about though is the tandem group; two riders (captain and stoker)on the same bike. On a flat route, there are few things better to sit behind than a tandem: ample windshielding and the speed of a freight train. 

On said ride, I was at the tail of a 10 man paceline being dragged along pretty speedily by a tandem. For 10 miles these guys did not get off the front, they just drilled it, they never flicked the elbow (universal symbol for someone else to take a pull) or drop the pace to give others a hint “time for someone else to come kiss the wind”, no… they just punched a big gap in the atmosphere for the rest of us wheelsuckers to slip through. By mile 12 though, their legs were obviously done, train after train started passing us and a few riders abandoned ship and jumped on faster wagons. Tandem guys still would not get off the front, all they needed to do was let someone else pull but it seemed like they wanted the glory or maybe they did not know how to get off the front…

I finally pulled the ripcord and joined another train. Just as I passed the former engine, I saw them put in a dig to grap onto the tail of the new ship but their legs were too far gone. They were left to face the coastal wind by their lonesome (thanks, see you later)  the glory of 10 miles but a faint memory now. 

Rightly or not, all I could think was ” there lies the fruits of pride“.  

Last Saturday, I found myself in a sipping of the same chalice. My delivery of the neighbors dog poop to their door step resulted in a serious but not unexpected confrontation. Many unkind words were said and absurd threats exchanged. After the show was over, and hormonal level rebalanced, a feeling of guilt and exhaustion replaced those of bravado and machismo. I told myself my behavior was justified, it had to be done, I had to stand up for myself, I could not look weak, I had to pull my weight. The thought of walking over to the same door I dropped a shovel load of dog crap at to apologized seemed too far a step to take. I would look weak, they would feel their threats got to me. 

Goldie encouraged me to do it and I did. I walked to that door, knocked, apologized and struck my arm out to seal the deal of reconciliation and forgiveness. The whole experience was so uplifting it was akin to that you get when leaving the slopes after 8hrs of powder skiing. 

Like Tandem guys, prides keeps you in front making you value more what people think about you than really addressing the true you. I believe my 2 biggest nemesis are Pride and Fear, fruits of the same vibe that must be overcome by love.