Image by Girlandcannon
I walk, you drive. I push my bike beside me. He’s loaded with forty, fifty pounds in bags. His one wheel is low on air, his balance is off, the steep gravel hillside slides beneath.
It is ninety-four degrees in the sky.
I grin as your speeding engine takes you past. A glare is a private indulgence. I sweat and cringe, but straighten my back: there is nothing to pity here. You shall not see my glowersome look, not in the sun nor freezing rain.
This tired and bulky steed is my savior every day. He has borne me over marshes, over bridges, past the jaws of wild dogs. It is an honor to carry him up the hill.
Fifty pounds are a wise man’s treasure. My art, my work, my life-blood in bags. Every ounce hand selected, anything extra given away. I would not surrender this burden. It is no burden at all.
The low-air tire holds just fine. It hasn’t gone flat, and won’t before sunset. Any other tire and I might be stranded.
The steep gravel is not just a road. It leads to others and still others, till some lonely lane where I’ll reach the doorstep of the gods.
I chose this road, and it is the smoothest most well-kept street on the planet.
Another car appears. I lift my head. The sun on my brow. I look at the driver, see her eyes, grin like a wolf, nod like a king.
She wishes for one moment that she were me.
I always love hearing from readers on my blog and Facebook. Have thoughts? I ask that you share them in the comments below. I also appreciate Facebook shares, tweets and any other type of sharing of my posts. For those of you who do, thanks for sharing.
Drew Jacob, Rogue Priest
October 4th, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Never doubt that there are those of us who wish we had the brave audacity to just jump headlong into the adventure the way you have. Thank you for sharing it with us.
October 5th, 2012 at 8:44 am
Poetry.
So I take it a portable tire pump isn’t included in your 50 pounds…
October 5th, 2012 at 9:35 am
Oh, it is.
October 5th, 2012 at 10:39 am
I’m with you–all the way—but I puzzle: Why so fast? Why the stressful schedule—are you enjoying the path? Why not saunter like a Sadhu.
October 8th, 2012 at 10:52 am
Randy, this is one of the best questions ever. It deserves an entire post of its own, but here is the short answer.
First off, scenes like the one above don’t come from an aggressive schedule. If a hill is steep enough long enough, I’ll have to get off and push the bike – period. That’s true whether I bike nine miles a day or ninety.
But, I understand your question. I have been pushing it, and doing long days.
I think that, for now, this is the way I like to travel. I enjoy hours on the road with only the wind for company. I also dislike the scramble that comes with arriving in a new town and not knowing where to stay. It could mean hours of work before I find out where I’ll stay and (if camping) get my nest set up.
So, instead of short jaunts here and there, I like to spend a few days in one place and then cover a bunch of miles all at once.
October 9th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
To better answer you, I wrote a whole post on this. It’s here.
You can also find the original reasoning for the long biking days <a href="http://roguepriest.net/2012/09/06/push-days/"here.
October 9th, 2012 at 8:04 am
[...] ride long days. Seventy, ninety miles on my fomhor. A reader asked: Why so fast? Why the stressful schedule—are you enjoying the path? Why not saunter [...]