Sometimes I am asked why I ride bikes, or more to the point, why it is such a focal point of my life. There are a lot of reasons to ride a bike. For health and fitness, or weight loss. For some, riding is a competitive outlet, for others a political statement. In some places an adult on a bicycle is assumed to have lost his driving privileges. All entirely valid reasons to ride a bike and, other than the loss of privileges, all have been a piece of the big "why". A piece, but even taken together not the whole. I ride to feel alive. I ride not for the destination, nor even the journey, but the moments.
The moment that the change in the surrounding vegetation makes itself known, not by sight but the smell. The moment the sun crests the horizon, lighting and warming a crisp morning. A hawk pulling out of the dive into a field of stubble, a mouse dangling from it's talons. The moment the mouse's luck changes as it wriggles free and drops back to the ground. The moment, after an afternoon of watching the clouds, racing the storm, that it is realized the race is lost. The moment of relief when, as suddenly as it hit, the storm has passed, steam rising from the pavement, from wet clothes as the drying begins.
I ride for the pain that tells me I am alive. The burning lungs and cramping legs on a long ascent, and the ridiculous pain in my cheeks when I realize my mouth ahs been stretched wide in a grin for no reason beyond the simple joy of the ride. The not so ridiculous pain in the other cheeks from a ride too long, too far. Even for the pain of unplanned contact with the asphalt, the corner taken too fast, the unseen sewer grate, the poorly executed railroad crossing.
I ride for the time alone, the time to work through the thoughts in my head, the relaxed solitary ramble to sort through the dreams and fears, the questions of the future and regrets of the past. I ride to escape the thoughts, to push myself to the point that nothing else can intrude beyond the push and pull of cramping legs, air rasping in and out of aching lungs, the hands, arms, shoulders rocking the bike in counterpoint to every revolution of the pedals, struggling to wrench every last bit of possible effort from the ride.
I ride to be with friends, for the time with the people I care about, doing what we love, each for our own reason, or no reason at all. Our friendly competitions, our shared triumphs and shortfalls. The cheered successes, the jeered defeats. The food shared along the trail, the beverage after, the retelling of the ride with a veracity to make a fisherman blush.
I ride because when I ride, I Am.
