Tag Archives: Freedom

I rode a familiar path yesterday. I was alone and without hurry. I took the harder lines and worried not about my pace, content to grind up staggered rooty banks and awkwardly lope over rock and log. Another entry into the category of just happy to be there, with nothing to prove, and yet I felt the shame of cowardice as I passed a few spots. I used to hit that every time I thought to myself. It’s easy and all there. The risk is illusion the reward in the pocket. Hush up another voice said, and just ride your bike.

Every mile is precious and not to be gambled on a brief flash of panic, a steadying, and then the nonchalance of the lucky. We didn’t ride with cameras on our heads back then, like reality show contestants, so we are resigned to vague memories and the fading echoes of pride. We were young braves riding stick ponies who pounded our chests at the trails. Oh well, old chiefs ride with prudence and lay long tracks across the land.

Juancho

Throwback Saturday saw me out in the woods with S’quatch and Hitops, enjoying sweet Grandmama Munson without a clock, a purpose, or 32 of my lesser-known acquaintances. those guys, a couple of grey beards, both had stories or grand conquest and achievement, an aligning of their personal mission, values, and talents resulting in a crystallizing moments of personal and professional validation. I can only hope to find such a moment in another 10 years. Until then, it is shoulder to the yoke and turn the press and grind the corn, squeeze sugar from the cane, and then do it all again. A working beast is a happy beast.

Meanwhile, down at Joe’s Bike Shop-

I saw a ghost, or the reverse of a ghost, not an apparition of a person once fully formed, but a person conjured forth from an incomplete image. The son of Shins, now 20, walks among us as a citizen. A few short years ago a kid, visiting in the summer, flipping his emotional bangs is now a fully-mo-hawked semi-human with ink to call his own and a confidence that shows he has not just arrived here a post-adolescent, by whining and sucking his thumb, but by adventure and work in the cold Rocky mountains and not pulling cappuccinos either, but w-o-r-k work. So now he has earned his cappuccino spot at Lake Ella and well-deserved it is. The next generation is here, staring us in the face and wondering if if is too soon to try to take the meat from the grey beards.

Be careful young wolf, grey beards don’t get that way giving away the meat. Wait your turn and you will be well-fed.

Juancho

It took all summer, but here is the author stampeding through the trees on his new Santa Cruz Highball C. For its inaugural run I took it to the Munson Monday Time Trials, aka the only mountain bike race I have ever done. Despite a nine-day vacation/ fish taco tour of California, a total of 25 miles ridden since the last time trial, 5 passed riders, and a mechanical, my time was…about the same as the last two times. This proves that is really is the carpenter and not the tools that count.

Nothing wrong with nice tools though. It is better to have one than be one.

The Munson Monday Time Trial series deserves its own mention here as well. I called the starts last night, giving each rider their own unappreciated and distracting Juancho pep talk at 1 minute intervals. It gave me some perspective. Things started with some of the fastest known trail assassins in town, and tapered down through the ranks of the has-beens, never-weres, gonna-be’s, and don’t know they are’s. People raced for pride, fun, or some unknown secret they kept in their hearts. The last racer to toe the line was a self-proclaimed grandma who started riding in May, and when she finished her lap 30 + riders roared her name as she climbed the final hill.

Made me proud of my town, and hate group events a smidge less.

Juancho

Taco got his new bike, and it has a lot of problems. It is a Santa Cruz Tallboy, carbon fiber, full-suspension, 29’er. I know right? That’s what I said too.

For starters it goes too fast. On the single speed I could count on him limiting out like a U-haul truck at about 13.5 regardless of terrain. Now that is more like a minimum expected speed, like 40 mph on the interstate.

If that is not enough it hardly requires any skills. It just rolls right over pretty much anything in front of it. Taco doesn’t even notice the challenging technical sections of the trails. His skills are totally going to atrophy now.

It’s too light too, like way too light. He is going to get all weak from a lack of effort.

Those are all minor problems though compared to the serious flaw which is that it is not mine. That is a major problem.

We rode from our east side neighborhood across town via the Dogboy’s house. After collecting the Dogboy he put us on a leash and dragged us through the Live Oak Connector (meanest mile in the south) and then little Cambodia and the Silk trail. Everything was wet, slick, and bone-rattling. I think I had a tad much air in the tires, but I’m afraid to give up a lb. of it. 3 hours and 20 minutes counts for a pretty solid day this time of year. I think we stopped for a couple minutes so I could get a tissue for my snotty tears.

I have a new bike out there somewhere too. It is trying to find me, probably lost and scared in a warehouse somewhere, or maybe a pile of unassembled materials on a factory floor in Taiwan. I’m getting my Zen on, and appreciating that every day I don’t have it is a day my drive train isn’t being ravaged by this Tallahassee summer.

Juancho

Tommy said don’t call him for bike rides anymore, not until further notice.

“Further Notice”- that’s one of those phrases that all the flavor has been chewed from, like “Going Forward.” They all mean, I don’t want to talk about it.

We understand. There are big summer projects to do, and it has nothing to do with the 92% humidity and the swarm of biting insects. He loves the misery index stuff, truly.

It is a defeat for the inner child. It is hard to justify spending the energy it takes to plow a field like mad money at the county fair. When play goes up against reason, none of us stand a chance. Inner children go sit in the corner.

There was no playing on Saturday’s ride. It was all brass knuckles and pitchforks for the three of us. Sticky heat and spider webs, burning thighs and marbles under shoulder blades. Grinding and churning against wet grass and softly melting rubber sloughing off along the trails.

The summer groove is settling in, and if we can ride through August, September may kill us, but October will be worth the wait.

Juancho