Shelby’s wheel is the only thing that is distracting my course.
The beam of light leaping from my handlebars leads me into the night reaching the pedals being held parallel to the ground in front of me. The shadows cast keep the texture of the trail a mystery only solved by navigating over it.
Stay loose.
I feel like Pacman, devouring small sections of trail as quickly as possible. The 30 feet or so that are visible blur through me as I careen into the night. My mind is clear. Any distraction would end in disaster. I am perfectly focused on the task at hand. All the distractions of life disappear. Nothing exists beyond what I can currently see. My brain doesn’t contemplate the obstacles, it simply reacts lifting my bike up, over and onto the rocks impeding my smooth passage.
Oh shit! If you have time to think out this one phrase you’re already fucked. Focus.
There is a scene in The Last Samurai where Tom Cruise is getting his ass beat in a stick-sword fight. One of the Samurais runs up, picking up his stick-sword and tells Tom, “No mind.” Of course, Tom’s a dumb ass and doesn’t get it. So he explains, you mind the sword. You mind the crowd. You mind your opponent. No mind.
This hyper focused state of being is one of the things I love most about riding. When you enter this state everything else disappears. There is no one behind you. There is no tomorrow, no yesterday, no fear, just the trail, you and the bike. All the distractions disappear. They can be dealt with when you get done riding. You no longer have the luxury of planning a course, you have to simply react.
As long as I can remember, I have loved riding bikes. I used to ride to Smith’s and buy the latest copy of Mountain Bike Action and read about how anodized purple would make me ride faster. I can remember when front suspension became the norm, the advent of the V brake (which I hated by the way, there wasn’t enough adjustment), the first disc brake I saw spec’d on a production bike…
I didn’t really start riding my bike until I was 17. I had my first heart break and after listening to the Cure for about four weeks in my basement, it became painfully obvious that I needed to move on. More importantly I needed to do something that I felt like I enjoyed.
I went for a bike ride.
I don’t recall where I went, or with whom, for that first ride, but I do remember how liberating it was. I pedaled my way through the pain that only a 17 year old heart can feel and came out the other side grinning. It was at that point that I realized the power of pedal therapy and I became a bit of an addict.
The only thing that has been a constant in my life has been the bicycle. It’s an amazing machine. It’s simple. It’s efficient. And most importantly, when we use it everything is better. We feel better. We look better. Our air is better. Bikes make life better.
How’s that for preaching to the choir (this word makes no sense to me, I just had to Google it to make sure I was spelling it right. Why the hell is the I after the O?). This choir is the kind where the singers are required to be there and as soon as they are done they are smoking joints behind the church.
Anyways, if you didn’t get it yet, the Alliance got out on a night ride this past Tuesday on my least favorite of trails, Paradise. I must admit that I was giggling like a school girl who just experienced her first high. I couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear and wanting to do it all again, really soon. All the fluff between this paragraph and the first one is what’s been bouncing around in my head for the past two days. Basically, you just read mental vomit. I apologize.
Who’s up for another night ride?
P. L. and R.