the tao of cycling: mysteries, part I

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

mysteries, part I

I visited my favorite place on earth today.
just saying that makes my heart swell.
I am so fortunate that I am able to do this, and I know that being able to do so places me in a relatively small, select group of people.
I decided to show you a picture of this spot so you can possibly relate a little more to my discussions: this is an aerial photo of Little Dell reservoir, and you can see part of the road I ride directly to the north of the water.
I had hoped to find a more current picture, but you will just have to envision the changes winter have brought to this spot.
today the western end of the reservoir is completely white, blanketed in solid white snow. as is the eastern.
but the space in the middle is still in that fragile state between liquid and solid, where crystals hang in a slow-moving existence, connecting with each other and slowly, oh so slowly, building new worlds.
a crack lies deep in this slushy no-man's-land, crossing from north to south, and the entire middle space has been decorated with those mysterious swirls that make me think of mold spores and amoeba.
I want to understand the process of freezing, and why these swirls develop, but I don't want to work too hard to reach that understanding. I recognize that half of what I love about the swirls is their very mystery.

which segues nicely into the rest of my topic: the enticement and intriguing nature of a good mystery.
my mystery today --- besides swirl development --- is that my odometer reading jumped by 25 miles since saturday's ride, without me having ridden my bike.
hmmm.
I mentioned that I rode in colorado on saturday: I had taken my front wheel off for the car trip, and just put the wheel back on my bike today. I clicked my cyclometer to "trip" so I could clear the mileage from saturday's ride, and it read 60.3 miles.
I did not ride 60 miles on saturday.
I rode 35.
did someone sneak into the garage, take my bike for a ride, then replace it (removing the wheel again) without my knowledge?
my total odometer reading was also increased by 25 miles, to 9032 instead of the 9007 it should have been.
how did this happen?

I have no idea.

no idea.

if you know, please tell me.

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.