Bike Case

I was out, riding.

That those four words were true were significant enough that it didn’t matter that the ride was less than 20 miles, or that I was home under two hours, or that turning the pedals over (and over) seemed, and felt, a surprising capability. Yet there I was, turning the pedals over (and over). I was out, riding.

I saw the young man on the corner, dressed in mostly black… skinny jeans, tousled hair, eyes focused on the device in hand. A bike case sat on the sidewalk next to him. He appeared to be waiting for a ride. As I climbed closer, a young woman ran up the side street toward him—she called out; he turned, smiled.

Timing, such as it was, had it so that I passed him, and his bike case, just before the young woman got to him. As i rode by him, I said “Safe travels and a good ride.”

He turned toward me, but I never saw his expression, and I didn’t hear a response if there had been one.

But I was out, riding, and that was more than enough for me… and I knew he would be out, riding, wherever it was that he was going, and that seemed something even greater.

Two Men By The Water

The first required a double-take.

Older in years and dressed for warmth, he was above the tide line and amongst the driftwood, back to the water. Next to him, initially and at distance, I saw a partner in a fleece jacket, with him dotingly adjusting the collar. As I rode by, though, I realized the partner had no arms, nor a head—it was a sizeable driftwood log he’d uprighted and dressed. I coasted, sat up, and looked back over my shoulder to confirm the sight. He was still adjusting the fleece’s collar.

The second might as well’ve been Ahab.

He stood at the edge of the seawall, near the point. Before him, the wind blew in from the north, stirring up the chop that kept people off the water. He wore a long woolen overcoat, his hands shoved into the side pockets, and stood in a wide stance. His mid-length hair swirled in the air. A puff of smoke blew back from him, and as I neared, I knew it to be pipe tobacco. As if on cue, he turned his head slightly and I saw a wooden pipe’s silhouette curling down from his mouth, the bowl nearly disappearing into the man’s thick beard. He appeared in a place of tension.

I continued my ride along the water, but took note of little else.

Posting Up

I’d looked at the radar, gambled, and failed. Still, it was warm-ish, the sun was angling between the clouds, and I knew the showers would pass. My clothes would dry on me throughout the evening. A mild inconvenience, but, too, a welcome bit of variety.

Along the short afterthought of a bike path, I looked down and appreciated the intermittent reflections of my bike and silhouette in the small puddles. I knew, too, that the two little bumps were coming up, and I smiled into the notion of once again indulging my habit of using them as a brief pump track.

Ahead, a rider turned onto the path coming toward me. At a distance, I saw that they were wearing a grey hoodie, hood up, and jeans. I wondered how they felt about the rain, about being in it while on a bike, about where they were going and how warm they’d be later on.

As I watched, and wondered, the rider sat up and held their hands a bit off the hoods, balancing. After a beat or two, the rider shot their arms up into the air. Victory. They held this for another beat or two, then went back down to the hoods, steadied, pedaled a little bit, then repeated the cycle again—hands hovering, pause, victory, pause, steady, pause.

We passed each other, and I smiled and nodded toward the woman as she continued along.

I forgot about being dry, in wondering about warmth. What I’d witnessed was enough.

Flicking Through

Toward the end of summer, the high school kid that’d been working in the shop came out on a couple of the weekend morning shop rides. He rode a budget cross bike set up with flat pedals and wore basketball shorts over his cycling shorts. He was a good kid and I could tell the summer in the shop had been a mutually appreciated time for all parties involved.

On the first ride, he dropped us twice—the first after the shop owner had playfully, in his self-deprecating way, mentioned something about climbing and that the kid didn’t need to take it too easy on us on the first big climb… after which, of course, the kid took off and the shop owner and I looked over at each other, shook our heads, swore, and got down to the business of not getting gapped too much. The kid later dropped us on a flyer for the town sign. The shop owner and I reassured ourselves with talk of wisdom, treachery and stamina.

On the second ride, the shop owner rolled up to me and asked what I thought about using the ride as a skills session and I smiled and agreed and he drifted back to the kid. I spun and listened to the guidance from the shop owner, adjusting my ride to match the scenario of instruction—sitting up to provide a bigger draft, getting into the drops to reduce it, drifting subtly in the lane for him to follow. After a bit, the shop owner brought up the matter of rotating through and the subtleties and responsibilities and nuance within taking a pull.

I sat up a bit, drifted out and flicked my elbow—I heard the shop owner smile, explain the flick, then encourage the kid to take the lead (cautioning against surging). The kid rolled through, concentrating on all he’d been told, and I drifted back to the shop owner and we looked at each other and smiled and left it at that.

Charge

The group had, uncommonly, remained intact up the almost-half-mile, 7-light rise into the city. At the top, we’d rounded the corner together. Bags were jostled by the uneven bricks, some lines were crossed.  At the next light, we waited—poised for the sprint.

Then, behind me and to my left, I heard the unmistakable notes of the call to charge enthusiastically blown through a kazoo. A few riders and a few more surrounding pedestrians answered aloud: “CHARGE!”

The light changed. We charged.

Rhubarb

I was riding because I hadn’t been and I’d lost something as a result. I hadn’t had a thought I’d find it, the something, but I’d hoped I’d find a piece, or a step toward, whatever it was. I’d pushed a little, but not a lot—there was more to push and less for pushing—and that’s how it’d gone for most of the ride. I was happy to be out there; I was reminded of what was absent.

Life had gotten the better of me for a while, more than I liked and more than one could easily admit. Amidst schedules and obligations and miscellany that, I’m learning, is just how it goes sometimes, I’d stopped riding. I’d forgotten how much riding meant, what it did.

At the bottom of a short descent that T’d into another quiet county road, a table and sign had been set up at the base of a tree. A flag hung above, swirling in the crosswind, just in front of an old hanging scale. I stopped at the intersection, smiled, and rode on. I thought about the sign—Rhubarb $2.00/lb—and the numerous stalks available along with a collection jar. I stopped and turned around.

I picked two stalks (a pound and a half, the scale told me) and snapped them in half. Around the bottom of the bunch, I wrapped the gilet I’d removed halfway through the ride. I stuffed the arrangement into my center back pocket, left a $5 bill, remounted my bike, and kicked off.

Immediately, the ride felt different. Better, as though the whole thing had supposed to be a grocery run and I’d fulfilled my task. I felt the tops of the stalks resting along my back, between my shoulder blades, shifting slightly with me as I pedaled. I smiled.

 

Couched Shadows

Turned on my side on the couch, my consciousness fading slightly, I watched the far wall where the shadows of branches shifted. I recognized a contentedness in my exhaustion. It hadn’t been a special ride—a common loop at an idle pace—but, for any number of reasons, it’d been a taxing one. The exhaustion told me I’d done something physically; the contentedness told me I’d done it well enough in some nonphysical measure. The shadows continued to drift on the far wall. I drifted into the fatigue.

Concept Airline

Concept airline to complement Amtrak writer residencies:

• Pints poured from kegerator wheeled up and down aisle;
• Choice of at least 3 good whiskeys;
• Literary publication in each seat;
• Hyper-insulated cabin for noise reduction & complimentary noise-canceling headphones;
• All window seats;
• Pet of choice can sit at your feet while you write;
• Tray tables sturdy enough to support a typewriter;
• Flight attendants are also skilled editors;
• One free checked luggage bag, including bicycles, skis/snowboard, musical instruments, etc.

Dottie, the Series — Bottle Cages

Amidst the pre-ride gathering, the shit-shooting, the top-tube-sitting, I noticed the marked-up paper taped to his top tube. He’d introduced himself to me earlier, though we’d ridden a few times before.

“What route did you ride?” I asked, nodding to the paper.

“Oh, no, those are thresholds,” he replied.

It was late winter. He didn’t race on the road. I wondered why he was training in such a manner at such a time, but I left it.

“You forget to bring water?” he asked, nodding to the empty bottle cages on my bike.

“No,” I said, “I just don’t tend to bring water on this ride.”

We rolled out shortly thereafter, a bigger group than usual. A mist not quite a fog hung low in the sky; glasses were rendered useless. It took twenty minutes to sort out the pace. Winter, I thought of all of it.

“So you really don’t bring water on this ride?” he asked again, having rolled up alongside me.

“Nah,” I said, “What’s that old saying, ‘If it’s 2 hours or less, leave your bottles and food at home’? Or something like that. Besides, I drink a liter of water before rolling out.” I didn’t think it worth mentioning that it was a lazy Sunday group ride, more social than threshold, which also included a midway coffee stop.

“That sounds like Old World reasoning,” he replied.

We turned early at the request of the guy who’d been off the back. “The fog is getting thicker,” had been the reasoning.

After the coffee stop, as we were repositioning helmets and putting on our gloves and wheeling our bikes around for the return trip, he mentioned the water bottles again.

“If you need water,” he said, “I have an extra bottle.”

“Thanks,” I replied. I wondered why he’d fixated on my empty bottle cages, but I also appreciated his concern. I also wondered if I should tell him that, aside from the pre-ride liter and the shorter length of the ride, I simply enjoyed an occasional glance at the empty cages—I thought them pleasing to the eye.

Perhaps unfairly, I thought not to mention the aesthetic element.

[Ed. Dottie, the Series is an exercise and an experiment. 300-500 word shorts about a bike and its parts, sometimes fictionalized, sometimes truth-ish. Previous.]

Something There

I was once floundering with the feeling that I was writing the same thing over and over, the same sort of stories, the same voice. I aired this thought to a person who’d written stuff I liked and who I respected and who, I wagered, might have some advice. They did. It was simply: “Maybe there’s something there. You’re writing the same thing over and over, so maybe there’s something there.”

Tony was the one who told me about punctum, about how he’d been perusing his preferred car site and there’d been a post about photos and the little things within them, the little details, the almost-missed twists that, once seen, managed to take up the whole thing. I loved that he loved cars, too, that in addition to bikes, he loved cars and motorcycles and engines. That we are not singular, that we can and often have more than enough passion and curiosity and interest to take us in so many directions. It reminded me of the woman who loved elevators—I’d spent a day as her student and, amidst all the talk of balancing this, tensioning that, it emerged that she loved elevators. She told me of the different manufacturers, how she had a favorite, and how she would look for the name plate every time she rode in one. I’d thought about the little closet elevator in Barcelona, which fit 3 people, or maybe 2 with groceries, and how I’d thought it cute, quaint, but that’d been it, yet here was someone who’d take that experience at a level far beyond, and I’d loved that thought, too.

I realized that the thing I’ve been repeating, where maybe something’s there, has been simply the little things, the movements, the grace and ugliness, the little bits of life. Not overly romanticized, certainly, or to be taken too seriously, because so much is too often, but something worth a little upturned corner of the mouth, a brief warming of expression. The little bits of punctum. That a brief moment in a group ride when someone reaches out a hand to slap a low-hanging leaf, or when one’s line goes sour, a crack opens in the road, and their rear wheel kicks out a little… and the rider, in a set of movements almost subconscious, keeps the line, keeps the bike upright and doesn’t brake, the only indicator of something happening a shifting of torso and balance such that an elbow lightly glances the elbow of the rider alongside, yet causes no larger ripple in the group. Brief, forgettable, but perhaps, too, there’s something there worth acknowledging, worth taking a moment and saying “Hey, isn’t that something?”, even if it’s small, even if it’s forgettable, even, and especially, if it’s not serious, and even if it’s not worth explaining even to someone who gets it, whatever it is.