I had my old red bike in pieces

    when it was new

  it was a state of the art

top of the line machine

 

at right around 20lbs

 

i rode it tens of thousands of miles

   used to roll 440 miles a week on it when I was in my prime

 

i was under 30

about 8% body fat

   my waking pulse was 25 beats per minute

 

I could hold my breath for nearly 2 minutes if i had to

i was stronger than strong

   hard and lean

and able to outrun the fastest thouroghbreds

 

One day in september

  i left diamond lake and rode to crater lake

then i rode twice around crater lake and back down to diamond

 

a pair of f-15s from k-falls were skirting the south rim of the lake

   i swooped down with them

through the hemlock and pines

 

   the sweet smell of the last of summer rolling up the flanks of mt scott

feeling as alive as i ever have

 

    the blue sky and long horsetail clouds

and a couple of fighter pilots

 

my only witnesses

 

i crated the bike overseas and it sat there in the box for a while

    i knew it was in there 

in pieces

  i called around and found a little shop where the guy said he could put it back together for me

    But it was $18 (US) and I thought that any guy that was as close to a bike as i was to that bike

  needed to put it together on his own

 

bike tools are specific to bikes

  and I'd have to improvise with general hardware

 

i found all of the pieces and got them in order

    greased the quill stem and wedge in the headset

 

reattached the bars and brakes

    found an old set of 535's in my tool box and attached them to the cranks

 

the bottom bracket seemed sincere

   and the tires still held air

 

i decided to re-wrap the handle bars with fresh tape and dug out a pair of shoes that had a clip in cleat

 

everything seemed good but my heart was just not in it

    so i leaned it up against the wall and covered it with a tarp

i left it there overnight to sleep on it

 

 

i suppose that i was second guessing myself

maybe i was worried that the thing would fall apart in front of the neighbors?

 

   or that i'd suck air and not have the chops to ride anymore

not have the strength or the coordination

not have the endurance

 

   or just not have the gumption  or the guts to try

 

i looked the bike over in the morning

   it was a beautiful thing  almost like a piece of art

a kinetic sculpture of modern engineering

 

i walked over to the bike and straddled the top tube

grabbed onto the bars

   it felt proper and right

 

i clipped into the pedals and knew that meant commitment

    it felt good  that the deciscion was made

 

i felt better once i'd done 5 or 6 miles and decided to keep on going

    sometimes it is possible for a guy to scare himself out of feeling really good

 

to allow himself to be robbed of life's simple pleasures by a thief that rents space in his head

 

i reckon it is time to draw up an eviction notice

 

 

I am old, out of shape and not a cyclist.

That was bloody brilliant, bordering on poetic. Thank you. 

My thief kept nagging - oh no oh no, something bad will happen, as I was reading. 

 

Keep on cycling, awesome story ????

Riding a bike is poetry in motion - Most efficient way of getting from A to B ever invented by man :-)


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I believe that the bicycle is one of mans greatest inventions.   Absolutely.