I can barely see my hands. If I look out and up, I can see flickering porch lights in the distance and farther up, the stars. There’s just enough light beginning to grow on the horizon that I can make out the shape of the mesa. I’m alone except for my two dogs who are romping around in the brush. No one is out here and that’s kinda the point. I’ve come in the dark to be able to be alone.
I flick on my headlight. The beam pushes its way into the darkness creating a bubble of light I will exist in for the next hour or so until the sun breaches the horizon and I can see well enough without it to ride. I let my eyes adjust to the sudden burst of lumens. I can hear the city, but it’s the soft, quiet city that only exists in the early hours of the day. As the light grows on the horizon, so will the roar until the din of industry and machines has overwhelmed this small portion of the desert.
I step over my singlespeed, hit the button on my Garmin and start to pedal. The light flows out creating a barrier about 20 feet in front of me where the darkness and the light battle. In some ways, I feel like a hamster in a light bubble running, but going nowhere. The darkness becomes an abyss that retreats as I move forward always staying just out of reach. Contained within this boundary is the ribbon of trail that indicates which way I will continue and an ever-changing array of rocks.
This small bubble of light becomes my home and entire focus. Without the distractions at the periphery, my mind hones in on the texture of the trail. Each breath becomes a point of contemplation. My only effort is to crank the pedals and stay on the trail putting my mind at ease and I fall into a bit of a trance. At first, I am hyperfocused. Every small rock a reason to adjust, every increase in grade, a reason to crank. It’s just me, my bike and a bubble of light that floats around me as I progress up the mesa.
As my breathing settles into a state of equilibrium to maintain the physical effort, the mental power to stay on the trail fades. I no longer focus intently on each rock or each pull of the pedals. Instead, I fall into a deep trance. The bigger things in life begin to flit through the vision of my third eye. The thoughts that have been suppressed or pushed back because “more pressing” things were at hand. These musings are interrupted by the occasional rock hit off camber jolting the bars and forcing my conscience to deal with reality. As soon as the interruption is cleared up, my brain drops back into the trance of the dark.
This is when time travel happens. My brain stops recording what is happening within that bubble of light. As I travel through space, it is dealing only with the immediate and most pressing matters and it’s navigating them on autopilot as the clogged rivers of my brain begin to flush out the nonsense like a flash flood in a slot canyon. The abrupt interruptions that require a bit more of my attention bring me back to the surface and I realize I have no idea where I am on the trail. Wait, did I already ride Jacker Stacker? Is that rock Commitment Issues? Why is this move in the middle of nowhere? They are fleeting thoughts that help reorient my psyche to the space I am existing in. Once reoriented, the switch gets flipped and I’m back navigating the recesses of my brain.
The light illuminating the boundaries of the mesa slowly grows. I notice it and make note of the rising sun and the beginning of the day. As the red amplifies fading into orange, I find a place to stop, even if it is only mentally, to enjoy that moment when the ball of energy that keeps us all alive breaks over the horizon sending golden rays across the desert. It’s a moment I revel in each and every time, the absolute best moment of the day.
With the sun up, my lights are turned off. The breaking light casts a soft golden glow on the trail as I begin the descent. With the darkness gone, it feels like my blinders are removed. There is so much more to look at, but the speed and chunk of the downhill snaps my focus back to the task at hand. I rip down the singletrack and soon find myself back at the truck. The dogs are breathing hard and waiting for water. The city is awake. People are out walking and the roar of machines reverberates through the landscape.
I put the bike back on the car my smile still big across my face happy that I made the effort.
Seek Discomfort. Embrace Chaos.
