12.27.2011

A Cold Winter’s Ride

Choose your todays carefully.
Now, I’m sure that I wouldn’t be considered very “hardcore” by anyone’s standards.  I don’t like to ride in the rain or the snow if I can help it.  Super heat, high winds, and sore bottoms are also never the funnest part of a ride….but sometimes the need to go for a ride outweighs the negatives.  Sometimes you just need to say- today is a good day, because I get to go for a ride.

The fall, Michigan ride my dad and I took, really was a freak of nature this year and the last good weekend of the year.  It was a golden citadel of perfectness laid before us and I’m glad we couldn’t resist its siren call.  Nice riding opportunities have been scarce since that perfect weekend- we’ve had rain, bits of snow, and seriously depressed temperatures (though not as cold as many of you must face yearly), basically an almost complete lack of nice riding opportunities.  I have sneaked a few chilly rides into work and a brazen, cold, wet, late run to fill my tank up for winter.  Winter is so depressing when you have to wait around to ride.


Things began to look up over the last week… suddenly there was hoping budding within (even though I know darn well winter has not yet truly begun).  Last week was the winter equinox, i.e. the shortest day of the year, that means that each day from there forward is getting a little bit longer, the sun hanging out just a microsecond or two more each day, in short- the road to spring has begun.  To celebrate the seasonal improvement and the holidays I was granted a gift yesterday…. a ride on my motorcycle.

They had forecast a rain and snowy mix heading our way to punctuate the end of the year, but as I sat at my computer I noticed a strange light overcoming my room- sunlight.  It was actually sunny outside- cold, but sunny.  I suddenly felt the siren call (my room is right next to the garage) – my carefully wrapped up bike, saying “I want to ride”.  Ok, resistance really is futile- I threw on some long johns, and extra flannel shirt, a cap, and grabbed the key to my bike and I went for a ride.  It wasn’t a long ride, only 30 miles or so, but it was a ride.  I felt the extra brisk wind chapping my face, my fingertips crying in their gloves, and I just couldn’t stop smiling.  There are a lot of hardcore riders around here and I expected to see some bike out on the road sharing my bliss, but I was the only one.  No one else listened to the siren, how is that possible?  I got some strange looks from people as I rode, but I just kept smiling.  I couldn’t help it.
Yes, chose your todays carefully, because tomorrow may be just like this.

Maybe spring is still a few months off, maybe I am more hardcore than I think, or maybe I just listen too much to the little voices in my head.  Any way you look at it – spring is coming, the days are getting longer, and I got to ride my bike for Christmas- YEAH!  Does it really get much better than that?  Possibly, but I think the little voices in my head might argue with you.  May you all be so lucky – Merry Christmas and Happy Spring is Coming!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please leave a comment, it will shoot me an e-mail and then I can "allow" it. This keeps spam down (the evil web sort - not the canned meat variety). Thanks.