ride joe ride

“We hate them, yes we do.

We’re not hateful by nature, and we’re friendly to the tall things which walk in the park. Some walk faster than others, and sometimes that scares us. Maybe we’re not friendly, but we don’t hate them. We’re dignified not hateful. We didn’t want to do this.

But the things which ride on two wheels, them we hate. When the weather is warm and the grass is green they move so fast on the pavement in the park that we don’t even see them coming. Suddenly they’re upon us and we have to run squawking out of the way. Sometimes they laugh. So embarrassing. Sometimes they hit us. We all know someone who’s been hit. When the weather gets cool they stop riding their accursed machines on the path and come onto the grass after us. Then we’ve no place to hide from them.

We’ve tried shitting on the path. It makes them angry and every now and again one of them will slip and fall off their machine into it. That makes us happy. Their bikes get covered in it and their funny ugly skin does too. Still, they don’t go away. All we really want is for them to go away. We didn’t want to do this.

The park is ours and we have to make them leave. We even tried stopping them at the cost of our safety. We picked one of us to stand his ground when they approached. The rest of us fled. The stupid creature, expecting him to run, didn’t slow down, and when he moved at the last minute it swerved and fell off its machine. One of their machines with four wheels and bright flashing lights came and took that one away. The others seemed not to care. We are desperate, but we didn’t want to do this.

Then one day we listened to them talking. They were throwing bits of their food at us while they rested. Their machines lay on the grass beside them, and as we ate the bits we eyed the machines wondering if somehow we could take them away. They looked heavy. One of the creatures laughed as he threw more food and said to the others “I’m fattening that one up! I know what I’m going to be having for thanksgiving!” Later, none of us could make out what this “thanksgiving” was, but we knew the look in his eyes. We didn’t want to do this, but the line had been crossed.

Now we’re waiting. It’s a perfect morning. Cold. Windy.

Here he comes up the path, alone. The wind is in his face, so he’s slow. Perfect.

Fewer of us will perish.

Cousins and second cousins and third cousins have joined us from parks far and wide. Look at his face. Never seen so many of us have you?

But still he doesn’t know. He keeps coming. He’s speeding up, the fool.

What’s that? He’s imitating our honk. He’s honking and yelling “move!” His last word.

We didn’t want to do this. The first of us pretend to scatter out of his way as he blasts into us. Then they fold back.

Now.”

This is my favorite time of the year. On my ride this morning I thought over a couple of reminders I’ve had in the last few days about what summer meant a few years ago. For most people grad school means an excess of free time, a shortage of money and lots of angst about where their life was going. At the time I noticed that people tended to handle this situation in a variety of creative ways. The more industrious of my friends used the free time and the angst to do what they were ostensibly supposed to be doing. They read, and wrote. They acted like scholars, got their degrees and moved along.

I could see that the grad school situation was both unusual and fleeting, and I tried my best to enjoy it despite the best efforts of my dissertation committee. For a few summers, my house was the default location for those of a similar mind on a weekend night — and on many week nights as well. I lived in the country, away from the school we all attended. People would show up before dinner, we’d amass a massive stock of very cheap beer. We’d circle lawn chairs in the yard and watch the fireflies come out. We’d talk. We’d drink lots of beer. Late into the night, we’d move into the kitchen, around the table, and we’d eat cheese quesadillas and play cards. Sometimes we’d fall asleep sitting in the circle, and sometimes we’d have a sufficient pile of beer to keep talking until the sky began to get light. We got lots of mosquito bites. When it came time for the bigger hurdles of grad school, our talks would sometimes actually be about work, but that was rare. Soon people began to graduate and leave, and finally there was a summer without a circle.

I miss nothing about graduate school besides those nights. They were born of destitution and uncertainty and the kind of deep friendship that shared suffering brings. Sometimes I think ultrarunning was my way of trying to make up for the end of that period of time — compensatory at best.

I wouldn’t want to relive that period of time, but I think about it on a day like today. We’d have been planning a gathering tonight, for sure. I’m glad that we had at least a time or two sitting in my quiet yard at 2 a.m. under a sky loaded with stars when we’d look at each other and agree “Huh, you know, this could be as good as it gets.”

Summer is in full swing at last, and living on the lake is really shining. I can tell already that spinning out of my driveway and toward the lakefront path in the early summer morning is going to be one of the crystalline moments of what it means to be so close to the lake.

Not much to say regarding the tubulars. They are holding strong over the couple of hundred miles I’ve put on them now. I got the opportunity to get a set of Mavic GP4 wheels on Campagnolo hubs for a really good price and I took it. So soon I will have both a sturdy set of trainers for less attentive riding and my current rockets which I’ll probably reserve for quick group rides and tours of le alps de Madison. I haven’t had to fix a flat yet, but I think I am sold on the sew-ups.

A is riding like a champ in preparation for our upcoming hilly century up north. We did a very nice ride to Evanston for 50 miles last week, and she held up better than even I imagined she would (I have an exceptionally high opinion of her abilities too). We toyed with the idea of building her a bike from scratch for the big ride, but we’re on hold with that at present. Lots of research led to the conclusion that it is nuts to spend $1000 on a prebuilt entry-level steel bike (a la Bianchi etc) when you can find a good, old lugged frame and outfit it with excellent components (much better than what comes on the prebuilt $1k bike) for about the same price. Then you can paint it flat black as well, of course.

After loads of riding, some of it fast, last week, I think this week will be about taking it easy riding-wise. I am going to do some deferred maintenance on all the bikes in preparation for potentially a multi-hundred mile next week.

For now this is going to be a sample post to allow me to test pulling blog content on to the front page via RSS. I suspect that I’ll have something to say here shortly. Or maybe not–I know how these blog things usually go.