Rediscovery

Being semi-retired (unemployed) at 27 results in boredom... a LOT of boredom. I really had no idea there were so many hours in a single day until I had no job to occupy a good third of it. So, to prevent my own mental and spiritual decay, I adopted the use of a daily planner.

Then I immediately abandoned it. I mean, I fill it in, but I never look at it (I know what I'm supposed to do every day). So, I'm still frequently fighting boredom. Did I mention that I have no TV, internet, dvds, or videogames? That doesn't help! I digress... I'll rant about videogames on some other post later. Right now, it's about my experience yesterday riding around my home town on my bike.

I'm not sure to what special niche of cycling I belong, but I have had a special spot for touring. The idea of exploring unknown territories from the vantage point of a bicycle has an allure to me. It's the whole “venturing into the unknown” thing, I think. I mean, I know the route I'm taking, I know my ride, and I know my body. What I do not know is the texture of the roads, their makeup, what their particular signature of gravel feels like beneath me! You learn what hills deserve your curses, which yards and parking lots you can cut through, and where those rare spots of shade always happen to be. And who knows, you might just end up passing by a winery you didn't expect (totally happened to me!).

Sure, I could drive through many of those routes, but that is nowhere near the same (and you know it!). Consider the following: I grew up in Green Bay, and have been driving its streets for the better half of a decade. But yesterday was the first time that I rode down them at any length. It's what I would call an Urban Tour, in which I pretty much just rode along the city streets, more or less aimlessly. I took routes I've driven for years and years, but they were entirely new to me from the perspective of my bike. Because I rode, I got to experience their subtleties in a new and very intimate way (If there's a bump, I feel it. If there's a patch of gravel, I swerve). Example: I rode almost the entire stretch of Broadway, a route I've driven plenty, but I never noticed until yesterday that it was at a slight slope. It's what's called a “false flat” that appears flat, but in fact is not. These things are amazing, or grueling, depending on which direction you're facing.

Fortunately for me, I was facing downhill and I had the wind at my back. So I was pretty much flying down that sucker! And it went through downtown and an industrial district, so I was flying while weaving around gravel and broken glass (more fun!).

But yeah, I learned that there's always more to discover out there, wherever you are.

In a final note, I would like to say that I actually enjoy riding around cars in cities. Cars out in the country are sneaky and fast, so they're like bad Strong Safeties (they never actually hit you, but they are loud and fast enough to scare you into screwing up). Whereas, in the city, cars are predictable and slow; you know where they're going and you know that you are far more agile than they are, and can fit wherever you put yourself. So they're slow, predictable, and way more afraid of you than you are of them. They're like (seriously, it took me a half an hour to think of a good analogy) student loans: as long as you're careful and keep your head on a swivel, they're harmless.

The tipping point for me, that moment I realized that it was no big deal riding around cars, was when I was riding singletrack. It occurred to me that I only needed about two feet to ride safely, and there's WAY more than that on roads!

It puts the lotion on its skin and clicks the ads again!

The Dare and The Crunch

So I talk a big game about living a life that's inspirational, adventurous, and exciting. When it comes down to it, though, Is pend a lot of time at home, surfing the interwebs, and watching TVshows whilst playing videogames. That's ninety-percent of my life.

Well it had been.

I've moved into my mom's house (temporarily; oh please, God, make it temporary!), and she has no internet. I could pay for internet service, but honestly I am quite excited about the experiment it will be with me having no internet and leaving my Xbox in storage. I may go insane, or I may become the genius that I think I am (or more accurately, the genius that the voices in my head say I am). Part of the purpose of this blog is to ensure my own productivity during this time of temporary retirement, which it has to some extent. But another purpose of this blog is to give me a reason to be daring with my own life. It's here to act as a soap-box on which I stand to declare my utter awesomeness and badassitude.

To do that, I need to take dares. And what would be a better dare for a blog that used to be about cycling than a tour?

I was excited about coming back home (and in many ways, I still am excited, here on day three), and I started making plans to see my old friends. And I realized that they all live in a straight line down Wisconsin (more or less; if Wisco were a body, it would be the digestive track). So of course, I immediately thought up the idea of riding that line, visiting friends I haven't seen in years!

I've never been on a tour of any length before, not like this. It is a daunting task, here, sitting on my mom's couch, but I want to do it alone so I can see how I handle the crunch when it lands on me. Right now, I am mentally planning for it, but I need to start physically conditioning soon. Not really sure what all that will take, but I don't wanna by dying out there in the middle of nowhere, looking for a field to curl up in because I couldn't make it to my hotel/campsite. Speaking of, I should really start making a route, and determine WHERE I will be any given day, so I can actually make plans to see people! And I need to try riding with equipment, because I've only rarely done that. In short, there's a lot of prepping to do...

Or I could just throw that all out the window and assume I'll handle the crunch when it happens. I like that plan better.

If you click the ads, I will personally not do anything special!

Now With Pictures!

Yep, got me a nice raspberry today. Well, that's the motorcycle term for roadrash (pretty sure that's a motorcycle term, too), but am going to delay explaining how exactly I got nice and bloodied for as long as possible, because it's just that lame a story. In the meantime, revel in my gory glory!

I ended my day with some spicy eggdrop soup, which I made myself (I'm trying to brag here, ya mind?). Turned out to be perfect for ending a night of riding around in shorts and tee-shirt at about thirty or forty degrees. The saltiness of the broth and the protein in the eggs was darn near perfect, but what really did the job was when I added the Sriracha! For those of you who don't know what pure delicious fire tastes like, it comes in a bottle and can be found in just about any asian restaurant. And it glows red and for some reason has a rooster and a bunch of Chinese (?) characters on it. The Chinese makes sense; it's the rooster that sticks out as weird. I digress; just know that you should google search "eggdrop soup" and follow the first one that pops up, but add sriracha. Nothin beats breathing fire after freezing to death.

Hey, awesome link: http://blog.thesrirachacookbook.com/post/1535833396/sriracha-food-group-food-pyramid

Side note: I tried adding wasabi and extra ginger, but neither worked like sriracha and soy sauce (thank you fiancee for the soy sauce idea).

I had weaved around rush-hour traffic to get to the only coffee shop in town that is not a Starbucks. I'll rant about Starbucks, but suffice to say: they're evil. Really, it was a chance to use up my punch card's free drink and reestablish my ability to ride a damn bike, after having fallen. I had basically given up for the day, worn out earlier than I was expecting, and discouraged by an unbelievably cold and strong wind. Really, I'm pretty sure I was riding in an outdoor wind-tunnel in Antarctica. Like that image? I do. Took me a while to come up with it, though. Not proud of that. But, long story short, I had to man-up after having wussed out earlier.

...

No way around it; I fell, with one foot still attached to my bike. I misjudged the slope of the parking lot as I was dismounting, and my weight was on the right while my left foot was the one actually detached. Hilarity ensues, and I get up with some nice scrapes to lie about for a week or so.

I fought a bear.

I was jumping off a cliff.

I attempted to fly.

I stopped a robbery.

Anything other than I fell off my bicycle and skinned my knee.

Thank's for Riding

So yeah, It's been a good 2+ months since my last post. This is how blogs go with me; I write a lot, then gradually lose interest of just plain forget about it. Happened to my writing blog. Happened to my other writing blog, and darn near happened to this blog, too. Fortunately I have a fiancee that bugs me into doing stuff that's good for me. Also fortunately, I had a fairly eventful day of cycling.

After having bought my bike, Vigdis (a Surly Cross-Check), I immediately started thinking of what to upgrade first. After having to deal with the weird knobbiness/non-knobbiness of the stock tires that came with the bike (I accept that, being what is effectively a high-end hybrid, Vigdis and her finer points will be exceptional at nothing, but still people!), I upgraded the tires to WTB's CrossWolf tires. So far, they're fantastic on wet grass, which is weird, of all things to excel at, but whatever. I no longer fear taking those sharp, low-angle turns because these new tires have a nice, consistent oh my God is this boring! New topic:

I got clipless pedals today. For those of you who don't know what those are (I didn't until like six months ago, so no judgments here), essentially, you attach your feet to the pedals, such that you cannot accidentally take them out. I rode with a mild fear of turtling (picture two wheels in the air and me upside down on the pavement -- oo! better yet, picture those fainting goats but riding bikes), but luckily i only looked like I had special needs a few times today.

Really, the cool thing is that you can power through on the upstroke when you're pedaling, so yay for efficiency! It's pretty cool dropping into pedaling beast-mode at any given moment, completely burning out your (my) legs and rotating which muscles to use and which to rest at any given moment. I'm getting that much closer to cyborg!

It's not exactly a life-goal, but still, it'd be neat to be a cyborg.

I was on my way back from the only coffee shop in town that's not a starbucks, weaving aroung some amazing holiday traffic, surrounded by cars at a stoplight (Conway sucks, that's all there is to it; it's a town with ten times as much traffic as there is to justify it). But, the car next to me, the passenger rolled down his window and said "thanks for biking!"

Merry Christmas, you commuters out there; we are appreciated!

The First Long Ride

So, I like to name things. Inanimate objects, I mean (literally, things). My car, I named Isabelle, after a short story and its main character of the same name, written by George Saunders - look it up; it's heartbreakingly beautiful. But naming my car isn't so strange, and frankly, nobody wants to read a blog of the banal (vanilla mementos? chalk thoughts? hrm... those are some fun names).  So, I named my iPod Charlyn Marie Marshall, after the birth name of Cat Power. My computer I named Cormack after Cormack McCarthy, author of The Road. And my detachable Hard Drive I named after my favorite Watchman character, Rorschach.

So my bike, my recently acquired new love, I named Vigdis (nothing whatsoever to do with the World of Warcraft npc).

Yup, it's weird. But then again, to be exceptional, you have to be weird. That's my excuse.

That, and there's a story to it. She's a steel-frame Surly Cross-Check, a bike known best for being able to take whatever its rider puts it through and keep asking for more mud, grit, and asphalt. Think an A-10 Warthog: violent and dirty. So in order to respect her, I'd have to give her a name that evokes in me a sense of her potential grace and power: Vigdis.

It's old Norse for "War Goddess."

Now that's a bike I'd be almost afraid to ride. Afraid of how she'd change my life, of how hard I'd push myself to even meet her capabilities. A bike I'm a little afraid to look at on days I don't ride.

So I'll accuse my bike's inflammatory name for my pushing myself too far on our first legit ride together.

Before Friday, the longest I had ridden Vigdis, or any bike, was ten miles of rolling countryside. This ride, though, was more than three times that. Thirty miles isn't a lot to more seasoned riders, but just consider tripling your previous longest ride, and you'll get a sense for the scope of my trip.

It's a ride a local group takes on Mondays, and it is designated as "great for beginners." That phrase is very open to interpretation. I learned that twice. First, on my way out (it's a there-and-back route), I was feeling like a pro, blasting the average speed of the ride by like five knots. Then, I learned again of the vagaries of a "beginner" on my way back home, where I bonked into a headwind. Pretty sure that's what happened, because I was putting out twice the effort for half the results. Toward the end there were moments where I couldn't think, where the whole of my existence was my pedaling legs.

But I did make it back, wall and all. Even my throbbing nether regions didn't stop me! I have now invested in a padded chamois, btw. I'll let y'all make all the jokes you want about a Viking War Goddess pummeling my ass, that's only fair, and there are far too many to list here.

Vigdis made it the 34 miles easily. Easier that I did, anyway. Maybe I'll be able to take some solace in the hope that I'll be able to ride that route in a few weeks without dying (or at least without my index finger going numb - the hell?)

I have difficulty pushing myself, like, always, but it's good having my War Goddess keeping me riding the path to Asgard

Faith of the Nightrider

Sorry, but I'm not talking about David Hasselhof's personal theology, or anything nearing the worship of K.I.T.T. (though really, that's one badass car). I'm talking about what it's like to ride at night, with cars warping time as they fly by, and with a tiny dot of visible road ten feet ahead at unbelievable speeds. In those moments, I am reminded of how gooey I am, really. And I'm reminded how the difference between my bike and a spear, is as little as a crash at the right speed and angle to impale me.

But hey, that's half the point!

Truth is, I took up cycling as an adult just two years ago, so I'm still a noob to it all. But part of why I took it up was because I started making a conscious effort to live more dangerously... riskily... or boldly... however you wanna put it, I wanted to do stupid, reckless stuff. Like riding at stupid speeds down a tight, muddy hillside in the middle of a thunderstorm. Or like the time I ended up waist-deep in the middle of basically rapids, holding my bike above my head, with the pebbles beneath my feet quickly slipping away, one at a time. Or like night-riding.

To be fair, it's not that stupid. It's not, as long as you're well enough equipped or accessorized. You know, lights and whatnot. I, however, am questionably equipped, and there are several points where I scan the roadside for bail-out areas if I should suddenly hit a pothole at thirty thousand miles per hour and have to jump toward something softer than asphalt.

But the entire process of doing reckless things has a few interesting results. First of all, I start to feel indestructible. I spend a lot of my thoughts reminding myself that I have health insurance, and that I can recover from pretty much anything that can happen to me, and I have a lot of practice keeping myself from thinking about getting trapped under a car's drive wheel for five miles. And that, folks, that's an important life skill. Practical and applicable.

Something else, though, it does to me. With a mediocre or just plain bad light, you never see what's coming until it's too late. So I plan and keep my eyes open, looking for any sign of cracks or potholes well ahead of me so I can react in time. But when it comes down to it, I never have more than a fraction of a second to react, and that's so much like life in general. I make all my plans, do my best to see the future, do my best to make my future happen, plan for the worst and hope for the best. But when it comes down to it, I'm riding through life, downhill, at breakneck speeds and leaning over the handlebars, with no time to react.

Now that's an exercise in faith. Take that, Hoff (not K.I.T.T. though, I won't mess with him). 

Drum Song (Post One!)

I was on my way home from work today, and I drove past a group of five or seven touring cyclists. They looked like Gypsies, hairy and hodgepodge. From the tail to the lead, each bike was weighed down, heavy with spare clothes, tents, sleeping mats and one guitar to share. They carried each their own worlds with them, and it showed. Besides the grime building up on every man, woman, and bicycle, every rider had the same distant gaze fixed on their face; that look acquired only when one's goal is nowhere in sight, and hasn't been for miles and hours on end. Even,  their leader, built so strong from God knows how many centuries behind her cranks, wore that same worn, longing gaze.

Still, like a circus, I wanted to ride away with them (hey guys, i have a bike - like me!).

Sure, i was listening to The Temper Trap's "Drum Song," and i was hungry as a rabid dog, and have a brand new bicycle, and it was quite literally magic hour, but still, i'm not convinced i was entirely irrational. Well, save the image of them as a group of Arkansas-based gypsy-cyclists-circus clowns, and the urge to join them was quite reasonable.

Cycling, after all, is about pure, hardcore freedom.

Think about it; the very nature of every single race is to be ahead, to separate yourself, to see none ahead of you and be alone in your vision. Separation and the open road mean you aren't being bogged down (literally not bumping elbows with everybody else of average capability). Ergo, performance in a race equals freedom.

And what about our collective experience with riding? For many of us, cycling, riding that first Huffy, was our earliest experience with truly separating from our parents. Freedom. As we learned to ride, we learned to find our own ways to the grocery store, school (the arcade, honestly), or our friends' houses. Before long, we would come to terms with the fact that it was the ride itself that drew us into late summer hours, and we would find ourselves just... riding. Riding wherever flight took us any given day, till the sunlight fell short of our drive and we had to fumble home in thick twilight.

And then there's the very process of learning to ride without training wheels. Our parents of choice (dad, in my case) would hold us steady, pushing us along, swearing all the while that we could do it. It may as well have been magic, for all we understood cycling at that age (still is magic to me). But in that moment, when our parents let go, we faced all the fear and disbelief that Lief Erickson encountered when setting sail from Iceland to Odin knows where, on the verge of true freedom and revelation. Even as we pedaled, we turned our disbelief and fear (there's no way that's possible!) into reality, magic into marvel (it works, I don't know how, but it works!). I never wanted my training wheels taken off. Speaks volumes of whatever about me.

Bicycles don't come with kickstands any more, not once you're an adult. Their very nature as machines is violated when they're stationary. Even motionless, they seem to fly. Mine does, anyway. There is something about bicycles, good bicycles, that stirs in us something old, that flight for freedom. This blog is an exploration of exactly that.