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| Sunday morning, 11:00 45 degrees it rained earlier this morning |
Awesome! Back to booties and tights, under wear, over wear, layered gloves, skullcap, talismanic scarab broach (perhaps), it's cold and vaguely raw, like early March. Except it's the end of April. It should be warmer. The capricious wiles of New England. Allez!
Some more bad news. I'm experiencing A LOT of lower back & hip pain, right side. The same old irritated places, except magnified. Really uncomfortable. As soon as I got on the road bike two rides ago I found myself having to stretch forward to grip the handlebars. Over distance, this proved to be exacerbating. Or so I now conclude after road ride # 3. My fucking parts hurt! First time in a long time.
So today, thinking that I should RAISE the seat (as I had with the Crux), I upped it a half inch and set out. Felt great. For a while. Eventually I noticed that my quads and calves didn't seem to be exerting too much energy or having much impact in the pedaling. The pull and push centered in the hip and pelvis, the lower back. And while one side (the left) could handle it, the other side, the ever cranky right, rebelled. I rode on.
Eventually, in the center of Harvard some twenty miles into the ride, I stopped and lowered the seat. D'oh. That seemed better. But was it? By now the whole muscle band was irritated. I improvised riding positions that offered temporary relief. I relished the chance to stand up and power up hills. Stamina-wise, I felt great, ready to do some mileage. Ah well.
I was going for the high note. The extrapolated breath of Oneness that your body offers up into the void of our imaginary selves. Praise to the enthusiastic embrace of What Come Next!
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| What Comes Next |
Then, riding out of Bolton toward Harvard, I passed the giant sycamore tree that's grown there by the roadside for ... 150 years? 200 years? A massive testimony to gentle perseverance.
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| Sycamore Looming |
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| Trunk of the venerable giant |
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| I Shad and the limbs of history |
Rainy mist at one point, some westerly wind, billowy gray & white ghost skies. A quilt of muted hubris.
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| Flirting with the void of reason |
Ride Summary: 35 miles (56 K), 14.9 mph, two hours twenty minutes. Felt great except for the nagging right-side freak out.
Road Kill: Bad day for small mammals. A red squirrel, a chipmunk, and a gray squirrel (not photographed).
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| Red Squirrel |
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| Chipmunk |
