Grim Portents of Darkness to Come

Dark days in America, literally and figuratively. The US election dropped a giant orange rat onto the dining room table and now we're all afraid of what the rat's going to destroy. It is hard to look on the bright side because the shadows cast by America's Folly are dense and long and have cast a pall across the land.

Still, Shad rides. Despite the raw cold, the early onset darkness, the tortured landscapes. Despite the specter of authoritarianism that has suddenly broken upon the country like a poison mist. Joy is hard to come by. The portents of decay are many.

Like the death of this noble creature which I found on the road running alongside the Holden Reservoir on November 27.

Owl down

Farewell, wise one

At first, I rode past it but, realizing what it was, went back to look. Wanting to spare this beautiful creature's body the desecration of being run over by cars, I moved it off the road and laid it down in the bracken alongside the reservoir's edge. I wanted to offer it a dignified resting place, and I asked its spirit's forgiveness for the destructive capacity of my species.

Then I rode on, saddened by the owl's death, troubled by the ugly forces that have been unleashed across the land.

Lately

Team Shad, by dint of the planet's spin and the arbitrary changing of the time, has essentially arrived at the off season. Darkness comes earlier and earlier each day now. Biting air. Hard sunshine. Falling leaves. Wind. 

Rides are catch as catch can.

Still, catch them we must. Team Shad is already on the books for the Rasputitsa (April) and the D2R2 (August) of 2017, so going into complete dormancy for any extended period of time is unacceptable. Besides, neither Dubstoevsky nor Wing Nut could handle that. They get surly and distant when deprived of the bicycle for too many days.

Zooming along the reservoir
November 1, 2016

The November landscape devolves into leaf-whipped barrenness, Bruegelian imaginations, trees, farms with gray, crumbling out buildings. Strange creatures pass gas, card-dealing crabs snap their claws at the ace of spades, whole sheep herds shift fearfully like twitchy coral reef minnow schools, a big fire maw opens wide to suck it all in. Fucknatty!

It's election day in America. Forgive the hallucinations.

Catch as catch can indeed. Like today's spirited dash of 17 miles that took in Bancroft Tower, Chester Rd hill climb, South Rd climb, the Reservoir dash, and a hard-driving return through Woo 'hood. 

Bancroft Tower on election day
November 8, 2016

Holden Reservoir nearing sunset
November 8, 2016