Michael: Trepidations

A ball of darkness
The bumble bee bounces from
Flower to flower.

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Every time I go out for a bike ride Kimme says she worries. Oddly enough,  that feeling has been creeping up on me as well.

Take yesterday for instance. My ride began going slightly uphill into a very strong headwind. Throughout my life that’s thrilled me because I knew on the way back I’d be going downhill with a big hand on my back pushing me to see how fast I could go. But yesterday when I looked down and noticed I was going 50 m.p.h. it didn’t thrill me like it use to and I sat up and feathered the brakes a little to take some of the speed off.

About 30 years ago I was in a similar situation going down Angeles Crest Highway and hit the fastest speed I’ve seen on my bike - 55 m.p.h. That was a blast.

I can’t pin point this concern with speed to any particular event or sudden realization. Periodically, since I was a kid, I’ve had crashes where I was going faster than I should’ve and have always been fortunate enough to walk away with nothing but some road rash. And it’s never stopped me from getting into an aero tuck and letting gravity push on the speedometer has hard as it wanted.

And it’s not that I don’t still enjoy speed, but something in my head’s now guiding me to start applying the brakes once I’m in the 40s. Why that is I can’t quite say. I’m sure there are a number of factors involved, I’m sure more hormonal than any conscious effort to become more wise and cautious.

Am I happy about it? In some respects yes. I’m not a bike racer and my bike handling skills, particularly fast descents, have never matched some of people I’ve ridden with. My bike right now is a training tool to help keep me in shape and a leisure vehicle I can hop on to see the beautiful countryside. Up hills are great conditioning and going fast on the descents just narrows my focus and doesn’t let me enjoy the world around me as much as I could if I just sat up and slow down a bit.

Yet I’m still puzzled by what changes have taken place in me to bring about this change and if it’s reflective of other changes that have occurred but I’m too myopic to notice.