Flying Dreams

"Thoughts Become Things" 

Drinking a Night Crawler India Dark ale from Flying Dreams Brewing Company in the Woo, and I read on the label (the art work of which looks like a cross between Mouse's legendary Grateful Dead illustrations, and Shaolin graffiti ) the slogan "Dream Big. Thoughts Become Things."

Say no more.

Let's see, I dream of a winter where it never snows, though it does get cold, cold enough to crisp up the air nice and clean and sharp. Where the deciduous trees, bereft of foliage, etch themselves proudly against a shamelessly naked landscape. When the daytime temperature strays into the 50s and the sun radiates down through a gossamer blanket of gauzy clouds. When traffic has, without explanation, forsaken the roads and a cyclist can sail along near the middle of the road, plenty of room on either side.

The dream came true, if only for a day. February 4, 2016 - more absurd warmth and spring-like conditions. The morphic resonant presence hums with benign complacency. It could all change in a day but for the moment of Thursday the 4th, six weeks after winter solstice with light lingering now in the sky 'til 5:00, the whole winter seems behind us.

I honestly didn't know yesterday, when I saddled up and set out, that winter would roar back to life just 8 hours later. As I slept into the wee hours this morning (which, being February 5, is also the anniversary of the onset of the infamous Blizzard of '78), light snow began to fall. By 7:00 heavy snow was falling steadily and at times with ferocity, and it kept up all morning. But that is a tale for another time.

As for yesterday, ride #6 of 2016 was an enjoyable 18.5 mile foray to the Reservoir and up South Rd and back, a ride marked by long vistas into the snow-less landscape, by dry roads, by pleasantly cool conditions for which I nailed the correct combination of tights, bibs, tops, wraps, gloves, paper bags, neck warmers, etc. Ka-ching, Kwai Chang Caine.

I opted to ride out of town via Institute Rd and the climb to Bancroft Tower. Standing and hammering the pedals with enthusiasm up the steep climb, at a point near the top I overtook a runner who then overtook me when I stopped to take the obligatory photo, and who continued right on past and up to the tower itself.

Bancroft Tower and runner, February 4, 2016

Then the plunge down the other side and through the neighborhoods -

Pine Tree Dr, Valley Hill Dr, Mabelle St, Kinnicutt St, Westbrook Rd, Richmond Ave, Aylesbury Rd, Moreland St, Walter St, Paradox Dr, Seconset St, Copperfield Rd, Grenada St, Rich St, Tory Fort Lane

- to get to Mower & Olean Sts. The dash to the reservoir and the race along the western edge at pace. Then the left onto South Rd for the familiar & beloved mile+ climb to the top in order to turn around and whir right back down. Woods bare of snow. Stone walls, gray green, recede up the wooded hillsides into vague distance. Crows crow-cackle in skeletal oaks, whimsy in their caws as if they too were happy to gambol about in such gentle weather.

I cawed them back in brotherhood. The brotherhood of Shad.

Bare woods of February 4th 2106 along the Holden reservoir

Lower Holden Reservoir, Feb 4, 2016

Dubstoevsky in European neck warmer, a gift of Scrodicus Frankfurtus
February 4, 2016

In Solidarity with the Riders of Frankfurt

Sad news from Frankfurt where a terrorist plot to bomb the venerable Eschborn-Frankfurt City loop bike race has resulted in the cancellation of the event. 

"German police overnight thwarted a terrorist plot by a radicalized couple, a plan they suspect involved bombing a bicycle race near Frankfurt, a German terrorism researcher briefed by investigators told CNN on Thursday.

German prosecutors and police said that a man and a woman had been arrested in the Frankfurt-area town of Oberursel on suspicion of planning a Boston-style attack, but the authorities did not explicitly reveal the target.

The suspected target, according to Florian Flade, the terrorism researcher, was a race planned for Friday. The race loops around Eshborn and Frankfurt on May Day each year, attracting large crowds of spectators along the cycle route."

Report from VentouxCalls in Franfurt.

Team Shad sends the Mighty Scrod and his fellow continental riders condolences and bellows of support and solidarity. We are cyclists. We honor the beauty of the circle, the all-encompassing form of Oneness. We are brothers and sisters in peaceful co-existence. We embrace the Wholeness of our planetary being. Ride on!

Bancroft Tower and the Fire of Cycling Passion

Ride # 56: Picture Perfect Day, Tempered By Disastrous News From Germany

Backyard Style, Sunday, June 1
70 degrees and dry

What a day. Perfect weather for cycling. 70 degrees, sunny, clear sky, dry air, not hot, not cool, just right. So what to do? Go to the mountain.

Today I opted for a slightly irregular approach. I headed out Pleasant St which presents a more gradual climb west than Elm St., the other option. But instead of going all the way out & up to Sholan Farm and down the other side, at the 3 mile point I took a right on Wachusett St, a road that climbs sharply upwards toward an eventual connection to Elm St just past Bartlett Pond. Wachusett St sets the stage for much climbing to come.

Because really, doing a mountain summit is all about climbing, though not the obvious climbing you'd expect. The mountain summit road is, yes, a challenging ascent, but (as mentioned previously) getting to the mountain's base involves serious climbing. Done regularly, it sort of becomes a badge of honor, like "yeah, another circuit up to Wachusett and back" the tacit understanding being that, holy crap, coming from the flats of Lemonstar, that is A LOT of uphill work.

At the 8 mile mark, you cross Redemption Rock Rd and head up a short and very steep Hobbs Rd extension. Then, at the 10 mile mark, it's the ridiculous uphill of the gutted, sandy, potholed Pine Hill Rd. Both climbs are savage, merciless, exquisite.

Today I spied a rabbit ahead on Pine Hill Rd so I went for him. Slew him in short order. Turns out, though, he was an older rider, (10 years older than me?) and obviously hasn't been riding much this year. He inched upward in slow motion. It was an easy conquering. I rode up to him, said hello, we chatted as I cruised by, and then I was past and gone and powering forward, upward, gone.

Pine Hill Rd.
There's a red dot rabbit up the road
but you have to look close
to see him

Shortly thereafter I dispatched the vicious Pine Hill Rd and then I was on the mountain and climbing. Being a gorgeous Sunday afternoon there were many hikers, walkers, occasional cars, numerous motorcycles, all either using Summit Rd for their activity, or crossing it as hikers who ascend on rocky, wooded trails from all sides. You can't lose focus, even ascending.

No worry of that or me today, I was dialed in and feeling Huge. I attacked the slopes repeatedly. I wended my way through walkers and picnickers, rode all the way to the left when cars or motorcycles came up from behind, and hammered straight up the center line the last half mile to the intersection where you turn left for the last 100 yards to the summit. And I hammered up those last 100 yards to boot.

Contrails over Wachusett Summit

Glorious view. Massachusetts unfolding in the four directions. Mount Monadnock in southern New Hampshire clear and sharp in profile to the north. Worcester a cluster of pointy buildings rising away to the south. I've seen it all before. So a quick turn around the crown and allez! back down the mountain I zoom (my speed hindered by a pickup truck, a senor driver in a Camry and a motorcycle).

I push it hard on the way back; I can do that now because I'm conditioned, I'm honed. I'm not thrashed on the last five or ten miles, I'm not knackered on the return climbs. Now it seems that I'm limited only by how much power I can muster.

Today, I managed enough power to sail along roads like this:

With the niceness
Heywood Rd

An over all day of great riding, tempered by disastrous news from the Mighty Scrod of Ventoux Calls that he has fallen and broken his arm while training. Garment rending and lamentation! A cruel and wicked and inexplicable occurrence! All of Team I Shad mourns tonight and sends collective positive vibes to our wounded comrade across the Atlantic.

Ride Summary: 36.4 miles (57 K), 14.8 mph. 3,560 elevation. Strava details.

Road Kill: A savaging. One big snake, two chipmunks, a gray squirrel, an opossum, a bunny rabbit. I only took a photo of the bunny.

Fresh dead bunny

Two Beeches and a Crash in Germany

I probably could have taken the day off in good conscience given the epic ride yesterday on the dirt roads and rutted byways of Orange and New Salem, but I didn't. It's November, it was Sunday on Veteran's Day weekend and the weather was reasonably mild and the sun was visible. The Opportunity to ride was there, so I seized it.

But not a big ride, just a normal, I-have-limited-time ride, a Sholan Loop of a ride, what turned out to be 17.11 miles (27 km) of spinning under fair conditions.

Leaving from my doorstep, I have basically two options. If I ride east, out the near side of town, the roads are mostly rolling without many significant climbs. However, they are also busy roads with a lot of town-to-town traffic. If I roll west, out the far side of town, the roads are emptier but steeper. Everything to the west is hilly and to ride that direction means a good deal of climbing. The Sholan Loop, for example, is essentially a series of climbs (though the return trip home is mostly downhill).

Two Beech Trees on the Way of of Town

I opt for a western venture today. That means I work my way through a couple neighborhoods and pass by a number of old resident trees, majestic beings like these two huge old beech trees. Certainly one of the joys of long range cycling is encountering trees. Beech trees in particular delight me and a few gray-trunked behemoths tower over some of the older, more established neighborhoods in Lemonstar.

West Rd is the last hurtle before free-sailing. It's a major thoroughfare, usually busy, and often requires patience to cross it. I'm not a skilled stand-upright-on-the-bike-and-wait kind of cyclist but I have learned not to react hastily at these types of crossings. The key, I've found, is to approach slowly, try to gauge both directions, and maintain balance as long as possible. Often enough I find that a break will open at just the right time before I have to unclip from the pedals and bring foot to ground. So it goes today. The approach, the caution, the deliberation, the steadiness, then a quick burst of pedal power and I'm across and zooming across the little bridge over the reservoir drainage creek, clear sailing.

West of Lemonstar

Balmier today. Sunday morning. Few cars. I feel surprisingly fresh given yesterday's undertaking. But there's no point in making it more than it is - an hour or so spinning to keep loose and burn some calories, to stay connected to the revolving wheels and empty the mind of its preoccupations and concerns. A ride like today's is therapeutic, like a rolling meditation, like a sauna, a cleansing. The body hums, the mind calms down, the senses receive.

The day is marred, however, by a text message I receive an hour or so after returning from an uneventful ride. It's from Scrod in Germany and reads:

Cher lescaret, dear bro, greetings from a hospital bed, bad fall today crossing tram tracks in cold light rain, bike just flew off to the right and I landed hard on my left hip, breaking the femur below the ball. Op is over and I am feeling much better. Prospects good.

A terrible development! Subsequent texts reveal the whole tragic accident, the hard crash, the ambulance, the bystander who dragged Scrod's bike off the tracks before an incoming trolley drove over it. Surgery. Five days in hospital. And the long recovery.

I try to imagine his state of mind by imagining my own in such circumstances. Bleak, surely, discouraged, pitiable. How even conceive of recovery? Doubly discouraging simply because Scrod has worked incredibly hard to get in the best physical condition of his adult life. Now, the temptation will be to consume Garibaldi's like pain pills, consoling himself with a victim's right-to-binge. It's a good thing the Scrod has been sober for decades else the bottle might prove a strong allure. I, surely, would seek respite in strong drink, in the irie meditation, in all the pharmaceutical candies the medical team would dare prescribe. I am not good with setbacks.

We must generate positive vibes and send them to the Mighty Scrod whose fin may be broken but whose spine, I know, is intact. The Scrod will ride again. And if even one tiny iota of good luck can be scraped out of this dark moment it is that winter is nigh and riding season all but over.

Dear Scrod, you will not have to peer nervously out your office window wondering whether the rain will hold off, whether the snow will abate, whether the temperatures will rise enough to allow a late afternoon ride. Your sole task now is to HEAL. To lay prone and read. To scribe Ventoux Calls with quiet ruminations and mental meanderings. To vow to yourself that you will rise again. Remember what you've proven in this transitional year - that you can train hard, hone your body, and scale the Giant of Provence. Next year you will resume your Quixotic odyssey à vélo.

Ride Stats: #86; 17.11 miles, 14.1 mph, 1 hour 11 minutes. Mid 50s, damp pavement, some mild sun.