So, here we go.
I have been racking my brain for the last few days trying to come up with something to write about on this here blog. Trying to come up with something clever, something fresh, you know…something that you would like to read. And then it hit me like a tube sock filled with bars of soap…who cares! You guys aren’t the boss of me, why should I care what you want to read? It’s my blog, right? Right. Exactly. Wait, what was I saying? Oh, right, I couldn’t come up with anything to write about…
So I rode my bike. I know, big deal you say…I am almost always riding my bike. But yesterday afternoon, as I rode, I cleared my mind and just thought about Declaration of Free Wheel. Not really anything else. Just musing on what to write about.
It was a beautiful day for a ride yesterday. I was kinda killing it (Jones Loop Bars are magic). Nobody was pissing me off. People that I was sharing the trail with were pleasant. It was a great ride! I mean seriously great. But what made the ride so great? Was it the trail? Sure, it could’ve been. But it was an off-road loop that I have been doing for a little under 20 years, 19 to be exact. And it hasn’t changed a whole hell of a lot in that time span. So could it have been the trail? Sure. But I doubt it. As much as I love this trail, I doubt after 19 years of riding it that it was going to rock my world all of a sudden. Then, what? Why was it so great?
I don’t know. I had a pretty clear mind. It wasn’t all cluttered up with shit I don’t want to think of when I am riding. It might have been the simple freedom of the bike. Or the freedom to simplify the ride. Those are things that a bicycle can give you. The bicycle offers freedom, sure…as it is only bound by how far your body can push it. But it also allows you the freedom to simplify your life. Even if it’s just for as long as a 12 mile dirt loop.
That’s what it was.
My life feels seductively simple when I ride my bike. So seductive in fact, that lately I feel like I am being pulled to finish out my next 50 years doing only simple things that make me happy. Things that I want to do. Things that make me happy intrinsically. Things I want to do for a living and in my spare time. Simplify…FTW!
Maybe the riding makes me feel so good that it’s a lot like someone who self-medicates, drowns his or herself with (name your poison) and gets caught up in an obsessed, spiral downward.
Maybe.
It’s obsessive, that’s for sure. But I’m OK with that. It’s good for me, nobody’s getting hurt. I suffer when I ride, but it’s under my terms and when I feel like it. I feel good about myself when I ride. It pleases the little boy inside of me. It feels like home when I ride. It makes me really miss my mom. I don’t know…I don’t know the answer….but it’s all I want to do.
Yesterday, I got on my bike, cleared my head of the clutter, started pedaling and let it all go away. I simplified my ride. I remembered why I do it and it was simply a beautiful thing…
See what I did there.
STW!
Declaration Of Free Wheel 