Life On Two Wheels

Along the river and toward the mountains a morning shadow shimmers across the road. The rays of the first light jet through the trees and across a figure gliding upon the road. His breath trails in short spurts, petrified as it hits the icy air. All is quiet except the slight sound of the athlete as he summons himself for yet another days work. Soon the rest of the world will bustle with life as well and the brief simplicity of cyclist and nature will disappear into the everyday struggle of life in full motion; the errands and intervals, the appointments and intersections, and the deadlines and finish lines OutPaceTheRace

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Five hours and four laps to go

North Bend, WA
Thursday, June 29, 2006

Yesterday was five hours easy. There was some sort of bad crash on the only road out of town, so I ended up doing all five of ‘em in town (they closed the road, so the only option out was the freeway). That was enjoyable; I’ve never rode that far/long in town before. Of course you can throw in some variations, but if you do the same loop every time you can actually calculate how many loops there are before you’re done. It turned out to only be four, but it was four laps I hadn’t planned on doing. Oh well, life wouldn’t be complete without doing five hours in North Bend. I brought five bottles, one for each hour, so that also helped with the repetitive nature of the ride. Each time I finished a bottle I knew I was that much closer to being done- I was tempted to knock ‘em all back at once.
Today’s just an hour easy, with a couple naps, if this weather continues I’ll have to make a rocking chair so I can sit on the porch like they do in the south (filthy, dirty). You know they actually have rocking chairs at the airport in Philadelphia!? Maybe that’s taking it a bit too far, but I guess they like there rocking chairs over there… I presume that I’d like ‘em too if you could linger only in the shade to keep from wilting in the sun and humidity.