a narrow strip of weathered asphalt

once upon a time emigration canyon road was paved with smooth, shiny, black asphalt.  poured thick and hot, it was rolled into a flat and even surface and care, motorcycles, and bikes began rolling over it with speed and ease.  then the seasons changed; air and ground heating and cooling, snow falling and freezing, plows scraping, snow melting, sun beating.  one day the sun rose over a road cracked and worn, pitted and bumpy.
the powers that be gathered in a room in a building miles and miles away, scrutinizing numbers, plotting futures, and decided that the road would receive a new surface, but this time, one of something called chip seal.  chip seal, a lesser cousin of asphalt, is not smooth.  chip seal consists of an asphalt binder, applied to existing pavement, topped with a layer of aggregate chips, then rolled . . . with the goal of embedding all those little (and not-so-little) aggregate chips into the binder and creating something similar to smooth road surface.
chip seal is what a governmental agency does to roads when they decide they cannot afford asphalt.
I've bemoaned chip seal before; I will certainly do it again.  if anything on your bike isn't attached and screwed down tightly (like a front light), chip seal will let you know about it.  my hands sometimes go numb from all the vibrations.  chip seal is not my buddy.
this morning's story isn't completely about chip seal, but now that you know about b u m p y chip seal you might have greater understanding of the personal quirk I will now share.

emigration canyon road--as I stated above--was once entirely paved with asphalt.  when they decided to apply chip seal to the surface, they skipped a few sections.  the lowest mile or so is chip seal-free, and there are another few stretches without it.  in addition, the chip-seal applications, at times, don't quite make it all the way across the bike lane/shoulder out to the edge.
there's a particular spot about 2.5 miles up where a beautiful, newly poured asphalt pullout juts out to the right.  and then when that ends, a length of road exists where the chip seal is one to three feet shy of the road's edge.
I always swing out into the pullout apron because it is bump-free and lovely, and then I ride the old-asphalt narrows to avoid the chip seal.  it lasts 12 yards or so, but the first couple yards are extremely narrow, probably less than a foot wide.
during the winter when I ride the canyon this strip of old asphalt is covered with snow, affording me no opportunity to ride it.  but as spring commences, the snow pulls back and it is once again revealed.
finally, to the point!
in april, it's hard to ride this little strip.
by may, I'm getting a little better.
when june rolls around, I'm pretty confident of riding it easily, without bumping into the chip-seal edge that could grab my tire and, at a minimum, unsettle me, at the end of the spectrum, send my sprawling.
this morning I nailed the transition beautifully, no question, confident, smooth.

practice is a beautiful thing.  well, practice (committed, disciplined practice) is actually a lot of work.  but the result of practice is awesome.  it is confidence, certainty, improvement.  it is mastery.  and if you never truly practice something, you will never know the joy---yes, complete and utter joy---of doing something well.
whatever it might be.
for me, this morning, it was being balanced on a narrow width of asphalt:  talk about quirky.  but it's something I challenge myself with each time, just like my hands-free riding on beacon drive (with which I'm also growing more confident.)

never stop growing.  never stop learning.  never stop challenging yourself to be just a little bit better tomorrow than you were today.  because this is the secret to life.

namaste.

four stories

a list of the many things I could write about today:

• chip seal, or, how to get rid of cyclists on the road
• branches do not break on their own, or, there's a deer in there
• roadside flotsam, or, is that really a pair of men's dress shoes sitting by that rake?
• mysteries solved, or, aha, that's why there were four cars parked at the mouth of the canyon at 5:40 this morning

I do reserve the right to revisit any or all of these topics at some later date.
but for now, here are the short stories:

they are putting chip seal down on emigration canyon. I rode six miles of it this morning, and it belongs in the category titled Not Fun. especially when they leave little piles of gravel (oops! forgot to spread that out!) for our skinny little tires to navigate. farewell, smooth asphalt . . . by the way, do you know what chip seal really is? it's just a bunch of (hopefully) small gravel held together with wings and prayers. okay, held together by pressure and a little tiny bit of oily stuff. the powers that be believe it's a cheaper way to pave a road, and I'm awfully tempted to place a call to said powers and have a discussion about quality paying off in the long run. or I could just be patient and let that chip seal crush in upon itself and eventually form a smooth (er) surface. sigh.

while I was riding on said chip seal this morning I heard a branch snap, up and to my right, and saw the swinging broken piece, perhaps 10 yards away. I thought, how odd, branches don't usually just suddenly break and fall all by themselves, but perhaps this is just one example of a tree falling in a forest, only making noise if someone is there to hear it . . . as I approached the sight of the broken branch I heard rustling in the bushes, though, and a flash of brown fur, which I know belonged to the deer I'd seen just a half mile back, flouncing through the wild growth. there is an explanation for everything, if one just employs patience.

there's really not much more to say here. there was a plastic rake lying on the shoulder beside the road, and next to it, a pair of black, suede-like men's shoes. I have no idea.

I love a good mystery. as well, I am fairly observant and quite curious.
so this morning as I swooped down from the golf course to begin heading up emigration, I noticed that there were four cars parked alongside each other in the parking lot at the canyon's mouth. now there are cars there some mornings, but usually only one or two, and the four-in-a-row thing was odd. only one had a noticeable bike rack on it. I pondered this sign. hmmm. could be runners. could be cyclists who keep their bikes in their cars. maybe I just didn't see the bike racks. maybe they're walkers. I have no idea.
so I rode. and didn't see anyone running, or walking. didn't even see another cyclist until a mile or so from the little mountain summit, when a single female heading down went past.
I crested the top and kept going, not another cyclist in sight.
I went past the reservoir and on toward big mountain, with just an occasional thought about the mystery car. they must have gone somewhere else, perhaps trail running or something. I shrugged my mental shoulders and focused on breathing, muscles flexing and straining as I climbed up and up.
a quarter mile from the top of big mountain two guys came swooshing down, and then a hundred yards behind them came the other two.
I grinned.
mystery solved.
sometimes it just takes a little patience.