My thin friends will have to excuse this pursuit. My cycling record just turned to three thousand miles; three thousand miles since September sixth. Three thousand miles and one hundred and seventy one hours on a bicycle. I like the number, I like that I’ve gone a distance without going anywhere. Iterations, a commute. The common dialog hates it, hates the forty-odd miles between the city and the nine-to-five. I used to, used to drive the conversation between people on a train, “Seriously, imagine a job in the city, the sleep in, the easy weeks”. I remember hearing of others who took to their bicycles to pursue the route, remember thinking them unnecessary, unfit to exercise rational thought. There was an excess to it that I refused to pay tribute to; excess lives outside my own character, an observed mark.
But I went, started up, found a friend who framed the gap.
“You’ll manage. Small increments.”
Weekend rides through the park; wet with sweat and cursing ills. Weekend rides through the park and across the bridge; dead legs and muttered words. Weekend rides through the park and across the bridge and down to Sausalito; remembers the view. Weekend rides through the park and across the bridge with a loop through paradise in turns and back; remembers breathing, remembers feeling rarely better.
And then to work.
The rhythm draws you in; draws you outside your thoughts. No matter the meddling the day might front, starting it off with a two and a half hour ride keeps that contained. There’s a meditative quality to it, something to the early morning, the silent company of surly men. There’s occasional chatter amongst our ranks, but the connection lives in rare air. We laugh through cadence bursts, console with feathered brakes, lash out with a brace of changed gears; little ring to big. Ours is a simpler time, a societal order that lifts the strongest man first. To watch us flood the southern bounds of the bay is a pictured frame. The spotting of suburbia as the miles count down; the scene cast against a morning light, the lashing rays that settle a waking bay.
There are few things better.
