Ample

As we pedaled along the Elliot Bay Trail between Civil and Nautical Twilight, Softcore began to engage me in a conversation of a deeply metaphysical nature and although I found his take on the matter lucid and illuminating, I just couldn’t connect. 

The vibrant streaks of orange and pink outlining the Bay with the silhouetted Olympics behind drew my attention so powerfully that I had to beg off from the discussion with a plea for permission to wordlessly appreciate the aesthetic moment.  Philosophical reflection, as appetizing as it usually is, was way more than I could stomach at the moment.

Similarly, as we hung out on beach number one, catching our collective breaths after portaging our bikes through the woods the first time, I couldn’t help but go all grouchy old man at the vocal stylings of one who, (in keeping with the monikers “Shuttup” and “Shows Up” Joe, I cannot but fondly think of as “Won’t Shut Up” Joe), accusing the singer of “gilding the lily” by attempting to pile on to what struck me as an already perfectly beautiful experience.

Likewise, I was my usual curmudgeonly self when having to hear another someone’s Bluetooth speaker create a public soundtrack to my suffering as I slowly mashed up towards the summit of Discovery Park; headphones there, son; I’ll take my bike ride through nature with nature’s own acoustic score, if you please.

All of which is to say that often—for me, anyway—enough is enough and sometimes, honestly, it’s almost too much as you begin to tip backwards down the stairs up which you’re carrying your rig, knowing full well, of course, that your own travails are nothing like those the Amazing Sergio overcame in bike-hiking his dreadnought through the trail earlier.

Perhaps I’m too easily satisfied at this stage in life; maybe more is better, but maybe, sometimes, as a beach fire that’s small enough to actually stand close around shows, less really is more.

Terra

Standing alongside the mighty Duwamish, the historical lifeline of our fair city, lit by the golden glow of a hearty palette fire, Shaddup Joe wouldn’t shaddup about his aspiration that the human race eventually ought to colonize other planets.  This sort of homo sapiens chauvinism escapes me; I myself resist the idea that having fucked up our home planet, humanity should look for other nests to foul. 

Additionally, it also seems to me that were the human race, through genetic modification and/or natural selection, able to adapt to life beyond earth, then those beings would no longer be human beings, and so the idea that creatures like us should see them as continuing our biological line amounts to the empty claim that sure, all the atoms that we’re made of will continue to exist in some form, no matter what; you know, we’re all made of star stuff, like Moby and Carl Sagan have observed.

Mainly, though, I can’t see why any prospective space traveler would want to leave a place like this, one where a surprisingly small group of cyclists on such a dry and temperate evening, (officially, the last Thursday of this year’s summer) is able to ride together down a four-lane mixed-use light industrial boulevard, pissing off only one angry Mercedes driver who loudly admonished all within range to “Follow the fucking laws!” and arrive eventually at a dead end overlooking the aforementioned civic lifeline in order to drink beer and reflect on prospects for extra-terrestrial terrestrials.

Anyway, the robots have already won; most contemporary human beings spend most of their time having machines tell them what to do; the bicycle, by contrast, unlike the “smart” phone or computer, is one of the few inventions in our lives that does our bidding rather than the other way around.

My bike takes me where I want to get go, (and amazingly, gets me back home, as well) right here, on planet Earth, where we belong.

Scrubbed

In my experience, the toothbrush has a life-cycle: It begins in your bathroom, for brushing of teeth, then off to the kitchen for cleaning the grout, and finally ends up on the workbench, for scrubbing cassettes.

There’s a class system here to be sure, but since so many make the transition, value judgments are set aside.  After all, flossing the teeth of a Shimano Megarange is no less noble an enterprise than getting into the spaces between molars. 

Your average toothbrush is just happy to have a role in life; it doesn’t matter whether it’s the penthouse or the outhouse, what matters to it is being used, performing its function, expressing its purpose, or as Aristotle would say, its telos.

Shirts in my house follow a similar trajectory as above: they start out as items in the weekday wardrobe, then become articles to sport on the weekend or in summer; finally, I figure I can put them on for a Thursday night ride without caring whether they end up with a burn hole or smeared with waffle batter or, as was the case most recently, shredded on the forearm due to an unexpected dive at the gravel path following an overzealous attempt to avoid a blackberry bramble hanging over the trail to Foster Island.

Nobody likes crashing, but I am pleased that my helmeted head slid under the park bench rather than landing on top of it, which is what I’ll try to keep reminding myself if the pace of sore shoulder recovery drags in the coming days.

And while I might regret the carelessness en route, at least I’ll be glad for thoughtful preparation: heading out on the ride, I swapped the nicer shirt I’d gone to lunch with for one already showing a few holes near the hemline, no great loss in its loss, after all.

Nobody minds when the workbench toothbrush falls to the floor; you just pick it back up and keep scrubbing.

Harmony

I like that the officer who rousted us out of our favorite concrete platform above a Superfund site had a patch on his uniform that said “Gang Unit.” 

I’ve long been of the opinion that, in spite of the embroidered jerseys, custom beer coozies, logo lighters, internet forum, sew-on patches, annual spoke cards, and other such identity-marking schwag, that Point83©™ is far more of a gang than a club; after all, there are no dues or admission requirements; all you have to do is show up on your bike and not be an asshole (or, at least be a relatively friendly, charming one), and eventually, you’re in, whether you like it or not, and if you don’t, then you don’t have to be, unless you change your mind and show up again.

I’ll always have a fondness for Jack Block Park, not only for its commanding view of our fair city, but also because it was, for me, the spot at which my association with the bike gang was more or less initiated—thanks not only to Derrick’s loving nutpunch, but also because it was probably the first time I found myself out on a Thursday night, riding my bike with a bunch of non-spandexed cyclists to a superior place I’d never been before, in order to mill about, drink beer, tell and hear stories, and, if I recall correctly, in that case, to play a little beer can/U-lock baseball.

So it was a bit of a bummer (and unprecedented in my experience) to be asked to leave so soon after we got there, but the good news, I guess, is that no one had to hoist their bike over (or under) the fence to get out. 

Plus, there was serendipity in coming across another bike gang at the alternative waterfront without having to go all Sharks vs. Jets on them.  Harmony reigns in the naked city; I guess that “Gang Unit” really is doing its job.

Priceless

When I arrived at the SLU Pre-funk, still in the mind-manifesting glow of my summer capstone adventure, Moistra and Shaddup Joe were conversing about Bitcoin and floating various strategies to scheme tech-bros out real money by gaming arcane aspects of the virtual currency market. 

Now, because I’m something of a Luddite (and no doubt in part due to the aforementioned capstone adventure), I really had no idea what they were talking about until Joe, with his usual bombastic air of authority, explained that it’s a scarcity model that infuses those zeros and ones with value since, after all, anything that’s rare is valuable.

That, I get.

Which is why an evening like last night is priceless.

Sure, the destination was not unprecedented; and yes, of course, several times a year, we find ourselves standing and sitting around a toasty bonfire on a bluff above the Puget Sound with the opportunity to launch glass projectiles at passing trains, but if you take the long view, and consider a whole life, even the traditional conservative estimate of three score and twelve years, and figure, in twelve years of Thursday night rides, let’s be generous and give the spot three times a year, that’s 26,293 days of living divided into a mere 36 such instances (and frankly, I’m sure it’s way less than that, but okay), that comes to mere 0.137 percent of one’s time on earth.

So, there’s about a 1 in a thousand chance that, on any given day you’re alive, you will be afforded such delights as bouncing through forest paths on a two-wheeler to congregate and quaff with friends and acquaintances beneath a rain-cleared sky illuminated by a brilliant quarter moon on an evening so mild that the fire is more for show and kinship than warmth.

Long odds indeed, but as 17th century philosopher Spinoza said, “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare;” still, amazingly, it was ours free for the taking.