Ride. Day 27 of #30DaysofBiking

I imagine a baseball bouncing off a bat, a golf ball bouncing off a club, a hammer bouncing off an anvil so the handle reverberates up your hand, up your arm, and up into your torso to shake your core. A bounce is more violent than a dead blow; more energy is released. I bounced out of the house today on a mission to ride. The only slack was time to warm up.

I rode hard and it felt good. Every pedal stroke cast down a stress. Flat stretches were coated with trifles. Uphills were washed in internal contortions. Downhills queue up more fuel.



Stress poured out. At one point fear crashed in. Riding hard is not riding defensive. A driver careened through a stop sign and almost crashed into me. The only response I had was to raise my leg as high as possible on the impact side so the bike would take the direct impact rather than my shin. I was braced for impact when she slid to a stop with horn blaring. She runs the stop in her steel protection cage and audibly lashes out at my exposed flesh? Neon riding vest be damned, or rather, be invisible. Let it be. Let it be fuel. Pour it into the pedals.

Dinosaurs are exchanged for steel meat grinding descendants.



A couple hours later the ride was done, the turmoil was done, and I was done. Sometimes you just have to ride.