Humans

Photo by joeball

I’m sure that other animals (and even plants) are great and everything, but you’ve got to hand it to humans above all.

You tell me of any other species that invents a contraption like the bicycle, which allows you to pedal the length and breadth of a mid-sized American city with some three dozen other of one’s ilk to stand around a bonfire above a great body of water on a night where the moon’s so bright it cast shadows and air’s so warm it just tickles.

Frogs, I’ll admit, are pretty cool and when they all croak in unison it’s as musical as it is deafening, but can they build trains able to carry a frighteningly immense supply of fossil fuel energy in linked boxcars and build a pedestrian bridge over the tracks so you can leap about like a slightly less-evolved primate and scream at the top of your lungs as it roars by beneath you?

And of course, you’ve got to respect the birds of the air, wheeling and darting as they pick off swarms of gnats at sunset, but show me where any of them can squirt lines of flammable liquid onto flaming coals and still successfully avoid self-immolation, as does homo sapiens,

Nor do I deny that all the fishes in the sea are amazing, but none of them, I promise you, can make beer and put it in bottles that make it portable and provide the perfect projectile for launching at freight trains that strangely, do not even crush quarters as they clatter over them on the rails.

I challenge all of creation to wait as patiently as did our collection of human beings for the lunar worshippers to finish their ceremony before an integration of yin and yang took place via colored sparks and glowing embers.

Sure, we’re a cancer on the planet that’s destroying ecosystems and ruining the atmosphere, but as the Man in the Moon proves, humans rule. 

Brief

If, as Shakespeare suggested, brevity is the soul of wit, then this year’s Filmed by Bike entry had, if not the substance of cleverness, at least its spirit. 

Ninety seconds goes by pretty quickly (except at the dentist) and so even if you’re squirming in your seat, it’s over before you know it, which was kind of what happened this weekend.

A picture is supposedly worth a thousand words; let the above video, then, count for the remaining 327.

Vista

Statistically, it’s unlikely that I will actually live to be 112 years old, but even if I do, I think it’s even more improbable that I will ever see a last Saturday in March as lovely as the 2013 edition, whose clear blue skies and unseasonably mild temperatures were the perfect backdrop to the 327 Words Halfway There (Livin’ on  a Prayer) Vista Time Trial.

Some half a hundred cyclists 

came out to savor a bouquet of some of the finest views in all of our fair city and compete for magnificent prizes from incredibly generous sponsors and friends, including Jagermeister,  Brooks Saddles,  Bill's Off-Broadway, Haulin’ Colin Trailers, 2020 Cycle, Defeet, Swrve Cycling, Vapolution Vaporizers, SKS Germany,Walz Caps,  Microcosm Publishing, BaileyWorks, Peddlar Brewery, Swift Industries, Bombus Bikes, T Leatherworks, and Alchemy Goods,

Ben the Angry Hippy ended six years of frustration by finishing first—at last—with a time of 1 hour, 23 minutes, and 32 seconds, and finally being able to raise the coveted Vapolution as his own.

Newcomer Sandra Wayman took First Lady with a stellar run of 2:07:25 and making off with a charming little saddlebag from Brooks, so darling it almost didn’t find its way into the prize pile—but alas, conscience prevailed.

In keeping with tradition, the trio of Wang, Tom, and Janelle rolled in after first DFL David Mattuzca, had already claimed last place, thereby earning the coveted honor of Double-Dead Fucking Last and the sharp Jagermeister caps that went along with it.

But, of course, everyone was a winner on a day like this one, none the least being race organizer yours truly, who remains in constant awe of the willingness of so many weird and wonderful human beings to engage in such a random event for no other reason than the sheer experience of it (and, of course, in BTAH’s case, the Vapolution).

My life, if hopeful calculations are correct, may only be half over, but with days like this, it’s already complete.

Tradition

Can you have a tradition of ignoring tradition? 

Because if you do, how can you honor it without failing to do so?

But this is just the sort of paradox one comes to embrace after so many Thursday nights out on two wheels.  You realize that of all the places you’ve ever been to, there are even more you’ve never been at, in spite of how memories abound no matter where you ride.

I was all ready to abide by past patterns and preview Saturday’s route, but it’s just as much a nod to history to not do so and besides, having ridden the course so often of late, my eyes were hungry for something different, so northward ho, happily.

Momentarily, from the Safeway with an invisible bathroom to a caged-up stop in the middle of a neighborhood, one could almost, at first, forget the charming  bumble through the new South Lake Union mess and Ye Olde Eastlake Path and Toboggan Run. 

But not quite. 

Because when all the blinkies unblink, there you are, on a ballfield, at night, enjoying the National Pastime—of some nation, somewhere, under some God or gods who clearly know what holidays are all about.

And then, you pedal back into the past for an opportunity to wax nostalgic by emulating the beloved tradition of steering around pedestrians on a dark lake path at night, albeit this time with nary a naked roller-blader to be (not) seen.

Later, in a fondly-remembered park shelter complete with burning twigs, I wondered with Lee Williams when thinking gets to be thought of as thinking; if we’re just talking brain activity, then the distinction can only be normative, not descriptive.

That’s why it doesn’t matter how many sights you see; it’s how you see the sights.

Predictably, the moon is full every month; that doesn’t make it any less thrilling when it finally pours forth from the canopy.

Just like your paradoxical Thursday tradition: traditionally untraditional.

Trainspotting

You’ve waited at the railroad crossing while the train is in the process of coupling: it goes forward, endlessly, then “no way!” backs up forever, then “you’ve got to be kidding me!” forward again as time stands still.

That ain’t nothing.

This time, in a wait so long it ensures that by the time you’re free and across the bridge, riders are already streaming from the bar, the long line of rail cars does the coupling dance, then waits as a massive freight train rumble roars past laden with mind-bogglingly huge shipping containers groaning with machinery that makes you feel like a little kid playing with Thomas the Tank Engine and dispels the annoyance of being stuck for a little while, anyway.

Afterwards, to your utter amazement and consternation and the surprising acquiescence of a cab driver who sits through the entire twenty minute—I kid you not—ordeal, the original train goes through the full coupling cycle again, which by now simply fascinates by contrast to the weather, which hasn’t repeated anything all day long.

Light rain in Bothell, clear by Kenmore, winter at Matthews Beach, hailstones like frozen peas.

I geared up under the park’s cedars and then, peddling towards the U, chuckled at shivering squids who’d dived right into the gale, heading north.

Spring break begins just like March: in a like a lion, out like a lamb?  We shall see.

Currently, this is what we do know: there are trains and there are trains but all of them seemed especially busy on this, the first full night of the season.  I was even stopped by a six car locomotive I’d never seen in action before, chugging right up the street (it seemed to me) in front of the entrance to the low level West Seattle bridge.

Rendezvousing with the ride, rumors of a far north route quickly thinned the herd.  But, as it turned out, the evening’s theme prevailed. 

Of course: the Boxcar!

Cheery

The first daylight meet-up of the season means that winter is over even if saying so jinxes you.

By now, the probability of lowland snow approaches zero and the moon responds with its best Cheshire grin.  A perfect scoop of cloud reveals springtime just to the west.

tehJobies advises an ill-advised route through the Market and off we go.

One never tires of blinkies through Myrtle Edwards nor of Featherhead flying over hill and dale nor of bombing through the bridge cage to Magnolia.

It turns out the Dravus QFC is a convenience store, which really seems apt.

Parking lots look the same even to those who know where they’re going; second time’s a charm, though.

To be towards the rear and see beams of light pour out over the dunes is more than enough.  To arrive in one piece all you could ask.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have been proud of the fire-making teamwork.  They would have envied paper but emulated shavings.

Old ways are the new thing.

Cherry wood makes for a cheery little blaze, especially when the atmosphere’s lungs breathe so deeply.

The rain shadow shortens a bit as the fuel is consumed; pretty soon you’re following Fred to the apparent delight of frogs everywhere.

Some places in town masquerade as their crosstown analogues; now that’s success!  With a swell bomb downhill, to boot!

Where you think that you’re headed is not where you’re going but when everyone arrives that’s where you are.

And afterwards, you make it home with all your pieces intact. 

There’s a model for an evening of cycling, one that never fails.  With a fire in the center, it’s hard to go wrong.  And when you do it en masse it’s guaranteed to amuse.

Behaviorists say that happiness is nothing more than behaviors that communicate happiness; if that includes communicating with yourself I agree.

Our internal states are both inscrutable and incorrigible; on nights like this, the external ones, too.

Unique

You could ride your bike halfway around the world like our new friend from Downunder, BlakeAndy, and not have a single other opportunity to experience what, around here, is fairly regular, if not downright commonplace: meandering through industrial wastelands on two wheels with several score like-minded ne’er-do-wells and fuckups, bursting lungs on what appears to be a freeway overpass complete with an eyes-closed pray-to-God crossing of those lanes halfway to the summit, then single-tracking through the woods to an abandoned gravel roadway where the firewood’s free, the beer is cold, (well, cool, anyway), sparks rise like libidinous angels in the night, and eventually, as the embers coalesce to cheery heartwarming coals, everything is as illuminated as a medieval manuscript, only better, since in this gallery, the portraits’ fire-dancing eyes follow viewers everywhere as the circle of humanity draws closer.

Seansweeny was telling me about a yoga class he went to that included dance music and a DJ and my initial reaction was well, that’s just too much, but then I was reminded that if beer is good and biking is good, then beer and biking is even better, so why not?  And adding a bonfire and stars just serves to enhance; perhaps there is no limit to augmentation after all.

In his objection to St. Anselm’s Ontological Proof for God’s existence, the monk Gaunilo asks us to consider a perfect island, that by Anselm’s logic would necessarily exist; but since it doesn’t, Anselm’s argument is allegedly disproven by reductio ad absurdum. 

Anselm responds that unlike God, who is infinite, an island is finite and so can continually be improved upon by addition, thus Gaunilo’s analogy, and by extension, his objection, fails.

But what if the island reaches such an ideal state that any addition would be subtraction?  Perfection might be a point achieved when conditions are balanced just so.

If that’s the case, then biking halfway around the world is but a short uphill pedal to God.

Strategy

The whole point of life is to make plans that you eventually come to let go of.

Most of the interesting stuff that happens happens when predictions go awry.

So, for instance, even though the Whiskey Stop ends up being cancelled due to maybe a megaphone, and the hope of catching an earlier ferry is quashed because the creativity of dock workers succumbs to shapes from Detroit and Tokyo, the result is that everyone’s together as imagined, even though no one had any idea things would look or sound like this beforehand.

It’s a shame that all our expectations and plans don’t come out exactly as expected and planned for; on the other hand, it’s way better than forecast to achieve results  that are completely unexpected.  To that end, we do what we can, in spite of the fact that that which we’re unable to do defines each of us more clearly.

It’s harder, actually, to get what you don't want than what you do; that’s why it’s important to thank the Universe every day for fucking with us.

Pain is relative and fleeting; what sticks around, by contrast, are examples of people trying to do the best that they can in difficult situations.  When you allow your eyes the panorama, you see fields of neon ablaze. 

I came to believe in the parade of  Peep’s, but who cares, really?

Especially when you get to stand around the prize pile for long enough to become  a trope; honestly, I think that I’m supposed to steer clear of the assembled loot, but at the same time, one does, in the name of efficiency, at least—have an obligation to identify what hasn’t been chosen so as to pick wisely.

But that’s the point, exactly: that-which-is changes constantly, so you can never really predict how things will turn out. 

Nevertheless, you can be certain the FHR will be grand, although in a manner you’d never have imagined.

Batter

Photo by Joeball

Even if it’s true, as tehJobies surmised, WE are getting old,IT remains as new as ever, and time stands still in honor of the 8th Annual Waffle Ride, returned this year to its traditional time of year when the Sun is in Aquarius.

The promise of free carbohydrates compels even better than free beer as three score cyclists set out from Westlake on a crystal clear evening that one wag called, in deference to New Orleans’ upcoming “Fat Tuesday,” Seattle’s “Get Fat Thursday.” Hah.

In spite of—for those not affected, anyway—the requisite culpability-free bike crash en route, the yearly horde successfully descended upon the Island Oasis and proceeded to produce breakfast at night in under an hour with not a single broke breaker.

Take it as an illustration of the principle that everyone is happiest when they’re helping each other, which is why tehJobies gets to consistently enjoy too much of a good thing.

Langston opined that this was the shortest fair-weather .83 route ever; even if that’s true in terms of mileage, it’s false when it comes to experience. Keep in mind that the ride is almost a decade long even before starting and that before it was over, there were two bridge crossings, multiple tunnel-screamings, innumerable paths along routes unfamiliar to many, and countless intangible places that pedaling parties can take you.

At the end of my night, as I lay in bed with the smell of bakeries wafting through my nose and the dulcet tones of tehSchott’s moving karaoke rendering of “Stand by Me” drifting through my brain, the phrase “Fun is work” bubbled up in my mind and it occurred to me that the phrase is a palindrome--if by “work” we mean something like tehJobies’ tireless efforts at the irons.

And I realized that by such tautologies that the Universe comes into being; something from nothing, existence via identity.

Looked at that way, such fun ain’t old, it’s eternal.

Suds

Photo by Joeball

Everything is a metaphor for everything.

Mist, for example, represents our inability to see what’s right in front of our face.

Destinations remind us that getting there is an arrival itself and being in one place a way to continue the trip.

Daniel Featherhead’s cantilevering split bike stands for the simple truth he does everything biking better than you.

And beer illustrates that we are all just bubbles in the common vat, froth on the shared primordial soup, self-aware suds arising from a single container that holds and is holding everything everywhere always.

And thanks to the fine folks at Peddlar Brewing, it’s all free!

Sometimes, there are miles and miles to go before the libations flow so liberally; on other Thursdays, you’ve barely broken a sweat and already you’re in your cups.  I’m pretty sure that never before, though, have so many ridden so little for so many pints; and I’m absolutely certain it’s unprecedented to do so in a place where you get to walk behind the bar and tap the keg yourself.

Of course, it’s not how far you ride, but how far the ride takes you.  And when you can stand around with a bottomless Solo cup of pale ale, the potential for movement is, like the amount to be drunk, limitless.  Metaphor, no?

The Angry Hippy conjectured that matter and energy precede time; the Kantian in me resists that: my mind’s categories make it harder for me to imagine an event outside time than a thing without dimension.  That said, one does experience timeless moments, especially when a ten o’ clock curfew really means 10:30.

Unless there are beer cells, there would be no beer.  And yet, without the beer, there would be no beer cells.  We’re individuals, of course, but only against the backdrop we share.

No riders, no ride.

Yet without a ride, there are no riders.

Metaphors become metaphors for metaphors.

And still the beer flows freely.  For free.

Sufficient

I don’t ask for much: only everything!

There’s got to be exuberance,  collective motion, and surprise, all wrapped in an enigma inside a riddle around a conundrum.

Or, a short bike ride will suffice.

One good thing about steep hills is  you can pack a lot more riding into a much shorter space.  When you go up and up, time, rather than distance, becomes the salient variable.

The yoga sages contend that a person only gets so many breaths in a life; that’s why there are techniques to slow the breathing; doing so makes you live longer.  Maybe the analogue is that there are only so many breaths you get on a Thursday night ramble; if you use them all up climbing, you’re done.

I don’t ask for much: only everything!

So when life offers less than I imagine, I need to see more of what’s there.

And then, I’ll notice, for instance, a classic rendezvous, an authentic hors categorie, and a bar that sells Rolling Rocks for just two dollars a piece.

That alone would suffice, and apparently did for those who went south.

For the north-facing group, though, there was more: a mechanical without incident, a route across the high bridge now made safer for riding and more difficult for suicide, and then, the crème de la crème, Fancy Fred’s best impression of Joeball’s wayfaring as we skirted the zoo along the so-called, and perhaps aptly-named “Elephant Path,” to much lower on Phinney Ridge than beforehand, but still worth it.

I don’t ask for much: just everything!

Adventure.  Self-inquiry.  Downhills that bring life to your senses.

And then, there was a long solo ride home, connecting up, ultimately, to just about exactly the spot I’d detoured on my ride from school to connect up.

Going in circles, sure, but they’re big enough ones that rather than repeating, you’re just never ending.

I don’t ask for much: just everything.

Life.  Eternal recurrence.  And eventually sleep.

Luminous

Photo by Joeball

One of the translations of the word “yoga” is “union; “yoga” which comes from a Sanskrit word that is almost a cognate of the English “yoke,” is about yoking together and forming a union between opposites like light and dark, good and evil, mind and body, the in-breath and the out-breath, and everything that is and is not everywhere and nowhere all in the same instant and for ever and ever.

Which is exactly what this year’s annual OMG Christmas Tree Fire ride was like as it combined the highest flames of the year with the lowest tide of the month to manifest a union of heat and cold, water and fire, bikes and booze, lies and truth, Dead Babies and live wires, all wrapped up under a moonless new moon evening with stars, believe it or not, on a January night in our usually gloomy Emerald City by the Sound.

tehJobies wore a silver fire-resistant space suit and made it rain fire and snow ash as he piled one more Christmas memory after another on the conflagration; at maybe a tree a minute for about two hours, I’d say a hundred to a hundred and twenty all told, most hauled by human power, at least from the brewery in Ballard.

Right at the bottom of the exhale, in the stillness before the inhale, or right at the top of the inhale, just before the exhale begins, that’s where yoga happens, they say, which is analogous, I think, to how you could find that perfect spot between being singed by the flames and frozen by the air but only by performing a kind of rotisserie action that spun you slowly around the circle, rotating and revolving like a planet about its star.

Embrace paradox: the colder it is, the warmer you feel; the darker the night, the lighter the mood; the more you drink, the soberer you become; less planning, finer results; many bikes, one ride.

Union.

Random

I believe in taking the nonsense seriously, so that means if your choice comes up, you might as well find a way to honor that outcome, even if the interpretation you would have put on it was different than everyone else understood it to mean.

That just goes to show you how difficult and surprising is human communication.

It was a somewhat lugubrious congregation on this off-week at Westlake so it seemed like an early bar made sense and, indeed, Georgetown turned out to be an excellent choice as it provided an apt destination for both the Lazy and the Bikeless and also treated me to an unexpected visit with an old friend from a different sphere, a kind of consilience that I always appreciate in whatever form it turns out to take.

I will forever wonder whether my chit was really chosen randomly from among that dozen or so slips of papers with possible destinations written on them, (although I did wrinkle mine up—which my friend who is a physicist and engineer assures me does increase one’s chances of being selected—so it may not be that suspect, after all) but since my words, “Home and to Bed” were the ones presented to me as where we were to be headed, (and since, as aforementioned, the dominant interpretation was that this meant my home rather than each of our own individual residences) the prudent course of action struck me as to interpret the situation in a manner that might still enable me to achieve the spirit of what I had suggested.

And so, it was probably this little bit of selfishness that led to my crash on the bike path. 

“Bridges May Be Icy” says the sign, one of which may be in my backyard, awaiting transformation into public art.

As much as it’s a shame not to win what you’d hoped for, isn’t it somehow more illuminating to get what you’d wished that you didn’t?

Superior

photo by Joeball

As Dead Baby Terry observed at Westlake Center, my sister Deb’s cookies are really something special.  Any homemade baked good is appreciated to be sure, but when you sample one of hers, your taste buds do a double-take.  You’re all like, “Wow.  Mmm.”  And you make the little involuntary sigh of pleasure that impels you to reach into the bag for another.  This is something I’ve long known about her culinary artistry and it’s always a pleasure to share it with others for their enjoyment and edification.

Come to think of it, many a Thursday night ride is like that, too.  You show up at Westlake Center thinking, “Okay, here I am; there’s all those other bike-riding assholes; this should be relatively palatable as a way to spend an evening.”

But then, you get out on the route, which includes and unprecedented Home Depot stop and a stirring jaunt through the industrial bowels of the city to a destination whose bonfire potential requires no importing of fuel whatsoever, and as the flames rise higher and the conviviality grows louder, you realize that, as a matter of fact, this is way better than you imagined it might be; your heart does a double-take and remember you should never ever take this shit for granted because it’s really quite remarkable even if you’ve done it before, more or less.

The full moon was so bright that it produced a barely visible spectrum in the mist surrounding it and gave us all moonshadows to follow if we wanted to notice.  I took the opportunity to scream at the top of my lungs for a bit and dance around like Stinky Pete.

Eventually, the flames died down and the beer ran out so it was up and down the hill and over the much-missed Airport Way Bridge to the old standby singing joint.  And even though the karaoke machine only showed background radiation, not words, it was still superior to predictions.

Wassail

It was a genuine Christmas miracle, as the skies, which had been spitting rain all day long, cleared up just in time for Santa and his attendant gang of cycling miscreants to depart Westlake Center fueled by holiday spirit, holiday spirits, and a spirited mix of holiday tunes blasting from tehJobies’ soundbike, whose dulcet tones were a joy to the world within earshot as we wended our way through some of the more populated areas of town via routes and pathways accessible only to those on two wheels or behind the reins of a flying sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.

In fact, the sole cloud cover all evening was precipitated by the decision of an especially festive Derrick to light a campfire underneath the park shelter roof thereby creating an inversion of greenhouse gasses that did little to warm our tiny corner of the planet but managed to momentarily blot out the shimmering stars and glittering quarter moon that were in evidence to anyone on the outside looking up.

Plus, the world didn’t end as predicted, an outcome that would have been particularly a shame given how much hot water there was to consume, thanks to the shared efforts of Santa’s thermos-bearing helpers.

It’s been a somber holiday season so far, due in no small part to the senseless tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, last week, but there comes a time, I think, when the memories of those lost and their loved ones are appropriately served by a reclaiming of the festive mood, and so, while it seemed to take a little time for the toddies and tunes to make holiday magic happen, there’s no doubt that most in attendance were lit up like Christmas trees by the time we pedaled westward to Freelard for a nightcap or three.

Santa Claus is coming to town and we are admonished not to pout or cry; when he’s with you on a bike ride, though, who needs any such reminders?

Christaster

There’s not much I really want for Christmas: world peace, full funding for higher education in the state of Washington, a new 650B wheel with a Son dynamo hub, because other than these, I’ve already received all that any nice (or naughty) little boy or girl could ever hope for in the form of yet another successful Point83 holiday Christaster, orchestrated with singular aplomb by the Angry Hippy, whose attention to detail in the golf-themed race course ought to put him right up there with Tiger Woods himself even though the mood of the event was more in keeping with your John Daly modes of consumption and excess.

I mean, you’ve got to love a race that features not one but three separate starting points, the second of which is designated as “finish” on the map.  (And if starting at the end isn’t an apt metaphor for these sorts of bike-fueled shenanigans, I don’t know what is.)

As for me, even though a slight overindulgence in holiday baked goods left me too distracted to complete the entire route, I did manage to achieve all desired three outcomes for the course: getting lost in the woods, experiencing the magic discovery of lights like Galadriel’s elves in the forest, and, ultimately, making it to the finish line for hot toddies and Reindeer Games.

I eschewed the eggnog-chugging, cigar-puffing, and lake-swimming, thereby eliminating any chances I might have had for a much-needed mulligan but no matter, victory was mine in the end, as I garnered a Lifetime Achievement Clappy Award for waiting longer than anyone else in the vicinity has even lived for marijuana to finally be legal.

My white elephant gift-bag pick was a winner, too, filled with variety of analgesics certain to come in handy on many occasions, although, perhaps surprisingly, no Advil or Ben-Gay is called for this morning, an eventuality I attribute mainly to the therapeutic effects of holiday cheer as embodied by another successful Christaster.

High

It’s not as big a deal as the long-awaited legal sanction for the basic human right to marry the person of your choice even if he or she happens to be the same sex as you, but there’s still something significant about what Timothy Leary called the “Fifth Freedom”—the right to get high”—finally being embodied in law and thus, worthy of being celebrated, naturally on two wheels, and especially when December’s monsoons hold off the entire evening despite being forecast by meteorological prognosticators all day long.

In full OCD mode, I was determined to get to the highest point in Seattle to commemorate the occasion, and bless what Mom used to call the “pointy pea-picking hearts” of my cycling brethren for indulging me not only the initial ascents but also the entire dance card of activities I felt one needed to complete before leaving the room, including even more ups and down just so ice-cream could be eaten in spite of the fact that the inclusion of a munchies stop is, to more than one expert in the herbal art of consciousness derangement more stereotypical than actual—a point that didn’t stop yours truly from scarfing down two oddly-delicious scoops of salted caramel at the pinball parlor.

Along the way, we surprised a charming young couple who weren’t aware that their trysting spot was one of the evening’s destinations and were also flabbergasted ourselves by the pink-lipped biker chick who felt compelled to remind us that White Center was her turf in a manner that, I at least, (in the state of mind I found myself), couldn’t really determine whether was intended as friendly or not.

In the end, though, mission fucking accomplished, as evidenced not only by the facts of the case themselves but also by the unprecedented experience of desiring no more elevation as we pedaled away from High Point even though, according to John Law himself, I had every right to partake.

Elfin

The Monkey was telling me that he expected to feel poorly in the morning while I tried to convince him that this was no reason to modify one’s behavior the night before, and although my powers of persuasion no doubt left something to be desired, I do think I set a reasonable example of my point, as evidenced by the empty wallet and creative bike parking in the storage shed that greeted me in the A.M.

But it was to be expected, as the holidays kicked into full gear beginning with a winter wonderland at Westlake and culminating with Sugarplum Elves in the coffee house on Capitol Hill.

In between, there was a mass ride on the Aurora Bridge, plenty of whiskey at the playground, and a couple of noobs lured into the fold despite the challenge of hauling around a gallon of milk.

When I was about 8, I had a dream that I was running down the street, ahead of all the kids in my neighborhood, including local god, Steven Harrison, a seventh-grader, who ruled the cul de sac.  It took me years to figure out that it hadn’t actually happened, but the memory lingers on and occasionally gets re-animated by moments like the one where suddenly, thanks to my favorite short cut and a dawdling pelaton, I found myself at the head of the pack as it emerged from the I-5 Hobo Trail.

Holiday magic!

Not surprisingly, I didn’t make it back with my calendar, so I’ll just have to suffice with memories, hazy though they may be.  Fortunately, the velocipede is a gyroscope once it’s moving and the lizard brain’s survival mode knows the route home, so there’s still some functioning gray matter for pictures of blinking tail lights high above Fremont and piles of bikes framing singing Elves to reside in.

Never fear the morning the night before; what we remember tomorrow will always make what we did tonight well worth it.

Elemental

You get to ride bikes through the woods at night to a secluded beach near the northwest corner of the continent where the waves, though just squirrel-sized, are actually crashing on the shore, stand around or apart from a cozy fire drinking beer and telling lies; the stars are out and rotating gently around or so it seems from your vantage point on planet Earth; you’re there long enough that the tide comes in, the flames die down, and eventually, you’re treated to a long solitary uphill that’s just familiar enough to be sufficiently confusing to turn into a nice little adventure on the way out of the park and eventually to the bar where friendly faces abound.

And you might have passed that all up for what?  Sports, television, or the internet?

I suppose I could understand the first option, at least if the Steelers were playing, a fun fact about my character that the Angry Hippy duly appreciated when we chatted about the bleeding of Black and Gold at the Boxcar, but even a hometown victory pales in comparison to the Big Dipper overhead and sand beneath your feet, arrived at via two wheels, under the cover of a chilly, but remarkably dry, November evening.

Plus, there was the futuristic thrill of pedaling over the luminous space-age magic carpet not just once, but twice, including what may be the new go-to route home from Magnolia, especially after dark.

For tens of thousands of years, our hunter-gatherer ancestors in the region probably gathered at the very same spot we did; you could feel their ancient spirits among us (or maybe that was just me, celebrating the passage of Initiative 502, albeit a month or so early).

Suffice it to say that homo sapiens’ evolutionary connection to the experience of flames on that windswept corner of land by the  Sound go way deeper than even the bond one might feel with a Steel Curtain.

Immaculate reception, indeed.

Spectrum

Standing around the fire’s dying embers talking about the late afternoon’s double rainbow—which, to my way of looking at it, arched from Windermere to Kirkland for over an hour on my ride home from school—with Darcy and Paul, both of whom had documented their views of the phenomenon on cellphones, it occurred to me that I’d found the perfect metaphor for the human psychological condition:

We’re all at the center of our own rainbows.

Wow. Heavy.

Photographic evidence demonstrated that the same heavenly arc that to me spanned Lake Washington was, from another standpoint, over Lake Union, and to another, behind Beacon Hill.  So, even thought I thought the pot of gold was to be found somewhere around Magnuson Park, someone else would be just as certain it lay near the Hutch and someone else, insistent its location be by the Jose Rizal Bridge.

And this would also explain why there are some many treasures to be found in our fair city; case in point, the aforementioned blaze in Seward Park, upon which I happened thanks to the directions of vintage bike gang rider, Evil Mike, whose path crossed mine as I pedaled down Lake Washington Boulevard in search of drunken bike idiots.

It was a jewel of an evening, the waning gibbous moon shining diamond-bright in its center, several dozen bike riders loosely arrayed around a cheery campfire in the southern part of a Northwest city, each and every one, like me, at the center of his or her personal rainbow.

Even Joeball.

And then, eventually, as the coals’ glow faded and the beer ran out, it was back north, until like moths to their proverbial flame, we arrived en masse (albeit in stages) at the International District clubhouse where Dead Baby Terry and Fancy Fred with the Professor Dave Orchestra customized the Commodore’s hit ballad “Easy” in three-part harmony, heard, of course, from within the central perspective singer’s personal audio-visual rainbow.

Wow.  Heavy.

Masked

As we rolled from Cal Anderson Park, the Caped Crusader asked me whether I was following Fred Flintstone or Elwood Blues; “Neither,” I intoned from behind my witch’s nose and pointy hat, “I’m following a dream, Oh Masked Marauder, following a dream.”

And indeed it was—or became, anyway—one of those chimerical eves where fantasy and reality collide happily and even though at least half of the assembled showed up as pseudo-hipster bike dorks there were still enough fright wigs and fancy hats to make for the sort of annual Halloween-themed shenanigans that this fellow in a dress, anyway, has come to look forward to at October’s end out on two wheels.

Pooh Bear and Ronald McFondle were nowhere to be seen, but the latter’s alter-ego, Bob the Cat-Tree Builder, easily held the fort, as evidenced by his money quote: “Ya wanna get hammered or nailed?” a question that neither college co-eds at Dick’s Drive-In nor flamboyant crooners at Changes Bar dared answer.

On some rides, the miles melt away like butter, on others, you barely break a sweat even in a polyester frock; but sometimes those are the ones on which you cackle with glee all night long, crossing streets by foot to crowd into a place made famous for 21st birthdays but which, it turns out, welcomes pretty much anyone anytime and where the single drinks are doubles and where—despite the fact that most others of those taking the microphone could actually sing—the Karaoke-J still took a moment to thank our gang of loudmouths and Blues Brothers for showing up to play.

It’s been a long time since I’ve made it to the nub of the evening, where bedraggled revelers scoff at local ordinances and build pyres from palettes but this chance was too good to pass up; and although I wasn’t there to see the flames die, I did see them rise as the Dark Knight lay down for a nap.

Emulsion

On the way to the meet-up, when I ran across him near the downtown library, Shaddup Joe opined that some people aren’t really happy unless they’re miserable.

And that seems right.

In fact, it was perfectly well illustrated during the route from Westlake, through the woods and over numerous rivers in parking lots and at intersections, to Wizard Staff Park, in a downpour loud enough to simulate the sound of public fountains as water poured off the roof of park shelters and in rivulets down one’s neck and cuffs on a night the weather gods seemed determined to make amends for the unseasonably dry autumn we’ve had so far.

Drowned rats never had it so good.

(But when Fancy Fred announces that he has a plan for exploring dark and twisty roads that few of us have ever been on before, bike riders come out—unless they’re sissies [who, it turns out, according to graffiti I keep seeing all over town, rule!]—even if the deluge begins right at the allotted rendezvous moment, an eventuality that I, at least, attribute to that long-haired sorcerer pulling out all the stops to make things interesting for those who arrived.)

The more puzzling question is whether it’s possible that some folks aren’t miserable unless they’re happy; that one seems less intuitively likely.

However, I can imagine this converse combination, too, and did, as we wound through the Cowen Park corkscrew.  Joyfully splashing along over tree roots and fallen branches, I couldn’t help but feel sad for anyone missing out on the fun and while it might be pushing it to say that was misery, the additional fact that you could be loving the company lends credence to the claim.

Joeball and I talked about riding gingerly on newly-soaked streets when the oil rises and cars doe-see-doe at summery speeds; ultimately, my own sodden route was neither particularly long nor fast, but ultimately, it was as miserably happy as could be.

Weakling

Sometimes, all you’re really up for on a bike ride is the bike ride.

Thanks, in part, to the demise, in the last second of the fourth quarter, of your favorite football team, and no doubt, to a week of work that involved more hand-holding and back-patting of colleagues and students than you’re used to after the recent months of relative leisure, the undeniable appeals of alcohol and fraternity fail to fully appeal.

You wander the bar a bit, impressed that, contrary to history, the assembled have yet to be 86’ed, and then decide it’s time to pedal home.

The route back’s not nearly so amusing as the route there; it doesn’t even involve a walk across the much-loved Ballard Locks, a place where miscreants and scofflaws turn into surprisingly good citizens, merely wondering aloud what constitutes cycling while still doing pretty much exactly what the signs say one must.

Moreover, you realize that even though you’ve left the ride, it still remains with you: every time you see a bike lamp blinking towards you, there’s that little frisson of hope you feel whenever there’s that chance of running across cyclists you know.

Occasionally, you even consider turning back, but the road unfolds too quickly and before you know it, you’re climbing past Convention Centers and hipster bars and then over the topmost top of the last big hill.

There are still stars visible, a phenomenon the weather prognosticators tell us will be in short supply soon, so you dawdle over the vista before plummeting down towards your final destination.

The last few blocks fly by and then you’re putting the rig away and locking it up.  You stand in your backyard while, noticing it’s the earliest you’ve done so on a Thursday in over a month—not bad for an old guy and thus, you can turn in and drop off soothed by the knowledge that there are others still out there, pedaling the night away.

Routing

There’s a difference between being on A ride and on THE ride, but it seems to me that if you arrive at the place where the cycling miscreants have assembled, then you’re AT it, at least, if not ON it completely, especially if your route there was longer than the one taken by the masses and even more so if previous to your arrival, you’d been hanging out with friends from work enjoying the same sort of free-flowing libations that characterized the earlier part of the evening for the others.

In other words, if the head start they got wasn’t really a head start at all, then, by the time you catch up, it’s fair to say that it’s no longer a matter of catching up at all, but rather, of reminding yourself that as long as it’s a Thursday night and you’re out on two wheels, then you’re pretty much already there, even if you haven’t arrived yet.

I took a route from Kenmore to Crown Hill I wouldn’t have assayed had it been earlier in the day when more cars were out, and, as it was, the shortest distance between two points turned out to be a pretty straight line even if that included a climb up a couple long hills and at least one descent I had to do over when my short-term memory for places was even shorter than usual.

In any case, arriving at the water-wheeling watering hole, I was quickly enveloped in the full-throated conviviality of the assembled, so much so that I was able to stay awake long enough to have the sleepiest ride home I’ve had in a long time, one of those ones where you choose the scariest, least efficient route possible, across high bridges and along busy streets just to make sure you can keep your eyes open until your house finally pulls up in front of you just as if you’d been on the ride all along.

Wizardry

The power of human norming systems is awe-inspiring; peer pressure, even when many of those “peers” are from another whole generation of history, can make a person do almost anything.

Imagine: you arrive at a public park featuring one of the finest panoramas of our fair city in town, on a warm and dry fall evening with the almost full harvest moon shining brightly above, and, at first, you can’t possibly see why anyone would duct tape beer cans together and affix them to their hand to make progressively taller “wizard staffs” to quaff from and do battle with, but after a couple of cold ones yourself and having also imbibed the strange mixture of dystopian fantasy tale and frat party bacchanalia engendered by the activity itself, you can’t possibly imagine why anyone would not join in the sport.

It’s likely that P.J. Diddy ended up with the longest and perhaps widest tower in the end, although the Angry Hippy, boasting that nobody in the world is less competitive than he, had the early lead in the clubhouse.

Later, there was ample opportunity to feel like a kid again, even for those who still are and that old douchecock sonzabitch Miles was right about only getting one chance to go down the slide for the first time, so you might as well go head first and upside-down.

Eventually, though, the hive mind coalesces on departure and pretty soon, just as you’d hoped, you’re following a line of blinkies down the Hipster Highway, an experience that can’t help but evoke a bit of nostalgia for jungles that once were but which also reminds you that there’s no time like the present, especially on nights like this.

There was magic in the air: how else could you get from Airport Way to Chinatown with eyes closed?

And then, another whole world in the mirror, a land where wizards dance and unicorns, thanks to their peers, are never kept down.

Soundtrack

When the face-melting volume of tehJobies bicycle-mounted disco first kicks in, it quickly becomes the ride’s soundtrack, the music behind the scene, even one as strangely juxtaposed as thirty Caucasians on bikes rolling through the city’s industrial wasteland to the throbbing beat of the Geto Boys’ “Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta.”

But eventually, the pulsating vibrations so wrap you up the separation between soundtrack and scene is so flattened that it becomes one thing: you pedal to the beat but it pedals you, as well, and in spite of the fact that what’s playing might be Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero,” it’s hard to tell where the music starts and individual personal identity begins.

So, when the tunes are turned off for a maintenance break as you congregate on a concrete platform over the river at the city’s heart, it takes a few moments to find yourself and you feel, at first, like Presidential candidate Ross Perot’s running mate, Admiral Stockdale, who, I learned last night, infamously opened his remarks at a televised Vice-Presidential debate by asking, “Who am I?  Why am I here?”

But soon enough, you’ve got your land legs back and you’re learning about the history of the shipping container and wondering aloud whether there might be other values to be stressed than just efficiency in the world of maritime trade.

Then however, the freshly-repaired sound system roars back to life and even the most recalcitrant of dancers can hardly help stepping out despite the fact that a fly on the wall glancing at those getting low might wonder briefly whether he’d landed at a park in Seattle or bar in San Francisco.

Fortunately, though, the beer runs out and the ride stumbles to the favorite watering hole of visiting groomsmen where Reverend Derrickito can find his new calling as a pitcher-swilling preacher for whom the word “God” is music—since every time it’s uttered, he takes another swig.

Conflagration

You didn’t have to be stoned to appreciate how beautiful the sunset was as the ride stretched out in a long line along Elliot Avenue en route to the Ballard Bridge, but I’m sure it helped.

The pinks and purples of the dying light made a masterpiece of the background to our speedy convoy, a loveliness engine that propelled an arrival at the traditional provisions stop whose backwards-spinning sign’s clock read merely “8:15” as we rolled up, surely a record even taking into account Derrick’s car wash pit stop.

Dump no liquid!  Drains to bay! 

(Which is sorta what we did in order to find ourselves overlooking the Sound on an evening that while it wasn’t officially the final Thursday of summer was probably the last time this year we’ll enjoy the season’s weather—so it was appropriate that such heat was generated by the fire, whose endless supply of wood continued to be augmented by one larger tree trunk after another, even as the stock of beer struggled to keep pace.)

We were joined by intrepid members and guests of our Dead Baby colleagues including DB Terry himself who later treated us to a rousing rendition of Bon Jovi’s “Dead or Alive” with custom lyrics for all those with even a little fondness for riding steel horses through the city at night.

I got to yell at some trains and use much larger humans as baffles to regulate the heat of the flames, so what more is there, really; some things never get old in spite of the inexorable advance of the calendar and a school year now just spinning on the rim.

We can never quite know what the future will hold; so bigger fires, louder songs, and longer rides make plenty of sense in some strange way.

You could pedal all the way across the country like visitors from a foreign land, but still, snaking through those woods to the coast, you’d be home.

Glorious

The word “glorious” comes from the Latin gloriosus, meaning  (among other things) renowned, famous, boastful, and full of pride, all of which are terms that could be used to describe aspects of the ride, which—with only a couple of wrong turns—found its way to the charming waterside park I’d scouted out earlier in the day. 

It was Fancy Fred, I think, who described the descent down the fresh asphalt through the woods to Lake Washington as glorious and my fellow aqua-phile Jimmy, I believe, who used the term to refer to the experience of paddling about in the water, which—at this late date in the summer—remains slightly warmer than the night air as we eke out the last few swims of the season.

But there’s another meaning of “glorious,”— an archaic usage that is even more appropriate.  Back in the day, people used the word as a synonym for “blissfully drunk.”

So at it turns out, many were glorious on such a glorious evening. 

Glory be.

I’ll never be the wayfarer that Joeball is, nor an organizer like tehJobies, but I’m glorious (in the non-archaic sense) to note that I did manage to navigate the pack, with only a couple hiccups, to a place that few, if any, had been to before on a Thursday night.  And if my preferred route out of the park wasn’t the one most people took, so be it. 

The quartet that did meander my way were treated to a loping ride on the moonlit ridge and views of Seattle’s downtown industrial core that were, in a word, glorious.

As the days get shorter and the nights cooler, one can’t help but feel a little melancholy at the passing of summer; so it’s heartwarming to stockpile memories of such evenings as sustenance for the dark months ahead. 

Of course, as the night wore on, there fewer and fewer recollection to be had; I’m certain, though, they were glorious.

Alps

As we rode along Eliot Bay, Fancy Fred regaled me with tales of cycling legend Jobst Brandt, who, as the internet attests to, used to cycle through the European Alps every summer, routinely burning up his rims and tires as he braked on the long descents, thereby giving rise, of necessity, to the development of his expertise as a wheel-builder, which just goes to show that destruction is sometimes (if not always) a required precursor to creation; from the ashes, phoenix-like, will rise something new, or at least the conditions for innovation to flourish.

Still, it’s hard to imagine that much will come from the smoldering palettes being sprayed down by an amused-looking firefighter in Fremont as I returned from Ballard after having departed from the ride remnants some thirty minutes earlier, although perhaps there’s a story that might emerge under the right conditions and in the proper time.

In any case, the main thing I thought in thinking about Jobst’s adventures is that while they’d be amazing, I’m sure, a person might just as well satisfy their appetite for stunning scenery while biking by touring the Puget Sound in summer, or even more specifically, just by pedaling around Seattle on an August evening when the sky is smudged with scattered clouds and the setting sun imparts a tinge of pink to their heavenly edges.

Later, on the dock with beer can chinking where I rode numerous extended figure-eights to keep warm, the quarter moon appeared in all its half-moon shaped glory, an apt metaphor, I’d say, for how words inevitably fail to capture the way things really are when you’re there out in it.

A cover charge inevitably split the group up, but no texts were needed to regroup: you just rode in the last direction people were headed and stopped at the closest bar. 

So maybe it wasn’t a summer tour of the Alps , there was still beauty there and tales to be told.

Jump

I sort of regret not riding the bmx bike off the ramp into the lake, but I’m certain that I’d regret a broken neck had I done it and failed even more, so I’ll be content with the memory of having been there and observed those flying wheels and bodies, enjoying the vicarious thrill of momentary weightlessness before two-wheeled splashdown on a perfect summer night for doing so.

P.J. Diddy celebrated his 35th birthday by turning 15 all over again and taking the sort of chances that as a teenager don’t even seem like chances but at a certain age strike me, (at least after a couple beers and in the twilight on a bike with no brakes), as falling just outside the boundary of acceptable risk—an assessment which I realize marks me squarely as over-the-hill, but that’s okay, discretion, as they say, being the better part of valor in some cases.

Besides, it’s not as if the evening needed improving on from my standpoint anyway: shirtsleeve riding all night and a long swim during which I had a fish-eye view of the riders as they went air and then water born, some getting rad, others holding on for dear life, all, in any case, to be commended for their courage and/or mocked for their recklessness accordingly.

The birthday boy himself managed to see stars on at least two of his jumps, one of which inspired Wonder Woman to leap into the lake after him in case rescue efforts were necessary, but fortunately, some precautions had been taken; the lifejacket did its job and no one sank to the bottom like a stone.

See?  As we live longer, we do learn some things—like how to live longer, for instance. 

And if that means going at it more gently, it doesn’t mean we’re not still seeking thrills same as ever, it just means we’re finding them more easily: like right there in front of our eyes.

Pinned

At the end of the evening (for me), I was standing at the bar watching, from the corner of my eye, the oddly-compelling Olympic track cycling team time trial and reflecting on the noble human aspiration to work together in order to create something beyond the abilities of a single person while continually striving for ever-higher levels of performance, but, of course, it wasn’t the onscreen cyclists who had inspired my ruminations, but rather, the activities and actors associated with yet another of tehJobies’ (annual) pre-Dead Baby Downhill Drunken Slip-n-Slide Dance Party extravaganzas.

The idea of “outdoing oneself” is fascinating because it suggests that we have at least two selves, one of whom surpasses another; I might conjecture, however, that in this latest incarnation of the Thursday night ride that precedes the self-styled “Greatest Party Known to Humankind” that the neon mastermind behind things must have had many more than just a pair of identities in order to pull it all together and, even more impressively, convince others to play along.

Tom Sawyer, after all, only had to persuade a couple kids to paint a fence; tehJobies, by contrast, induced several score of (putative) adults to consume cocktails made with grain alcohol, strip down to their skivvies or bathing suits, adorn themselves with glowing plastic, and then proceed to not only hurl themselves downhill over a wet plastic tarp in the dark, but even more impressively, to climb into a kiddie pool filled with a gelatinous goo and wrestle one another to the cheers and catcalls of a rabid crowd.

I myself refrained from most of the shenanigans, believing that, when the cops showed up, it would be easier to explain things if I weren’t topless in a bathing suit, enjoying instead the efffervescent “Pink Elephants on Parade” visuals made possible by bikes and people wearing glowsticks; wonder of wonders, though, the authorities never did appear.

Perhaps next year, though, when selves are inevitably outdone once more.

Hear

If I were riding down the Burke-Gilman trail (or Westlake Boulevard for that matter), and I came wheel to wheel with a line of forty or so cyclists carrying beer and other provisions pedaling to the beat of a throbbingly loud bicycle-mounted sound system who invited me to come with them for a swim in Lake Washington on what may have been the warmest evening of the year so far, I can’t imagine that I wouldn’t turn around and follow without hesitation.

When I mentioned this to tehSchkott, he pointed out that there’s your difference right there: I’d U-turn for fun because I’m the sort of person who does that; all those spandexed teeth-gritting riders we tried unsuccessfully to entice didn’t because they’re not.

Of course, this is circular reasoning, but that doesn’t make the conclusion false even if the argument’s fallacious—which is, I think, a decent metaphor for the evening’s experience: it’s undeniably true that the water is fine, the beer refreshing, and the music festive, even if the manner in which those outcomes were derived is questionable.

The waxing quarter moon formed a perfect ear in the sky as if our planet’s satellite were listening in, making me suspect that Luna, too, would have turned her celestial chariot around to follow the music even if that sometimes meant pedaling dangerously close to the sounds of Katy Perry or yet another playing of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler.”

Pasty torsos held a meeting in the water while less hardy souls mingled on land as dusk settled and Springsteen crooned; eventually the ride stumbled west to a patio near a different, but still connected body of water—which is, now that I think of it, another reasonably appropriate metaphor for the bike gang experience: the names and particulars are different but the flow is all one, so really, even if you don’t turn around, you’re still part of the same vastness whether you embrace it or not.

Noble

This is how excited I was: on my way to catch up with this year’s Running of the Bulls ride, every time I saw a group of people wearing white tops, I slammed on my brakes, thinking that I had found the assembled masses, a tactic that probably only added ten or fifteen seconds to my route, seeing how fast I was pedaling to get there.

Arriving, then, at South Lake Union less than an hour en retard (quite a feat, if I do say so myself given that I started out for my destination 1500 miles and half a day away, in Santa Fe, NM), I was rewarded with the sight of more than four score cyclists in the customary garb along with a handful of people who weren’t actually bulls but were nevertheless dressed in manner that suggested male cattle, prompting me to immediately take the ceremonial plunge into the water, my first such foray into the drink on this year’s summer riding calendar.

Traditions happen almost by accident as like minds agree to reinvent an occasion occasionally; at the current rate of growth, sociologists in the future may be confounded as to whether Pamplona or Seattle came first.

Who’s copying whom?

Or is it, like the invention of the internal combustion engine, one of those developments that emerges concurrently around the globe, a hundredth monkey phenomenon, the human hive-mind giving rise to a spontaneous expression of our species’ collective unconsciousness?

Or maybe it was just the ideal summer evening, purple clouds filtering golden sunbeams over the park, white clothes stained burgundy through pink complementing the celestial hues perfectly.

Bottle rockets hardly needed launching to augment the festivities, but they were, of course, to the surprise of no one and the chagrin of just a few.

And then, the plastered pelaton was off again, red sashes trailing, and while minor crashes lay ahead, the noble tradition was once more secured, bull taken by its horns.

Flux

One of the main lessons, as I understand it, to be taken from Vedic scriptures is the impermanence of all things.  The Buddhists talk about this, too, and, for that matter, modern science tells us the same thing: even our sun will eventually burn up and out, consuming the earth and destroying whatever remnants of human culture and history might still possibly remain—by itself an extremely unlikely prospect some several billion years from now.

Like the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus said, “All is flux, nothing stands still.”  Reality is constantly emerging, oozing into and out of being; moreover, it’s all just illusion; there is only one unified All; we are merely whitecaps on the vast ocean of Being; in time, we fall back into the One that is Brahman that is Atman that is neither and both.

That said, however, it sure is fun to act as if we are individual monads travelling through space as we pedal about town, not quite sure at first where we’re heading, but relatively confident that as long as you can keep the bike in front of your in sight, you’ll eventually arrive at some place where drinks can be drunk, eats can be eaten, and stones can be skipped in a lake that, this year, at least, turns out to be too cold for anyone, even the putative birthday boy, to swim in.

Summer’s coming slowly this year, but the chill won’t last (nor, of course, will the warmth once it arrives), which only goes to illustrate the point from above: all of this is ephemeral, so we might as well enjoy it as much as we can, even if that means there’s not a perfect outdoor fire nor is the bar something new and different.

Because, after all, even the same thing isn’t ever the same; like Heraclitus said, you can step in that river over and over, all you want, but you’ll never step in it again.

Inflation

You can have your pick of metaphors for .83: how about shuttered liquor stores and fresh booze aisles in the supermarket?  Or maybe an indoor firepit whose main power is to melt the ice in your drink?  Or something like bikes being carried down three flights of steps and then ridden straight up cliff-like hills?

But the one I think does a particularly fine job of capturing the spirit of the thing is how, in order to locate the hole in your tube, you’ve got to pump the shit out of it until it looks like some sort of hilarious donut hula hoop and that’s when you find what you’re looking for.

After all, many is the time the ride doesn’t really get started until things have been pumped up beyond all recognition so to speak and even though last night’s shenanigans never, (for me, at least), attained that transcendent level of overinflation, they were, in a word, sufficiently expanded that I could feel the telling whisper of air that lets you know the mystery’s been solved and you’ll be able to patch things up for another turn of the wheel in days to come.

Plus, as we stood en masse overlooking our fair city from the eastern slopes of Magnolia, there was that toddler ginger on his two-wheeler roaring dangerously around the cliff edges of the park again and again as if auditioning for admission to the drunken bike gang circa 2032 or so.

Alternately, I imagined that the little freckle-faced dude was actually our lord and master, the exalted reborn lama, showing us the way it’s done—albeit in a bodily form unrecognizable to normal perceptions.

But that’s the whole point, isn’t it?  Getting to see what you usually don’t see, even if it requires you to go beyond the usual modes of observation.

And if that means you’ve got to risk the blowout in your face that deafens you, so be it, metaphorically speaking.

Rendevous

I knew I had to be close to catching up to the ride when I was forced to pedal up and back through a switchbacked handicapped-accessible ramp into the deserted park.  And when I crossed not one, but two darkened baseball fields and descended into the lightless bowl of trees, I was confident that if I called out “Brother! Brother!” in the classic Wreyford-style, I would hear the echoing calls of one familiar voice or another, which indeed was the case, as the Angry Hippy welcomed me into the fold of several dozen intrepid miscreants arrayed about in the north (suburban) woods.

There’s something especially satisfying about heading out solo later in the evening to rendezvous with the bike gang, especially if they’re in the out of doors, and even moreso if you’ve already been out for a solid pre-funk of a sushi dinner with your loving family: it’s an embarrassment of riches, frankly, but thanks to liberal applications of sake over the meal, you’re not embarrassed at all.

On occasions like this, it takes but a moment to feel re-integrated into the fold; before you know it, you’re telling lies with the best of them and blowing on the fire to coax it into a blaze cheerful enough to inspire a moment’s panic from some of the assembled when a car rolls by (a feeling  not long-lasting enough to discourage the taking of questionably-legal routes on the way home, but I digress.)

And so, even though my night among the ridership was, all things considered, fairly brief, it clearly had all the elements necessary for complete enjoyment: bicycles, bushwhacking, and beer, and a brief stop at a bar that will forever have a special place in my heart for its bringing together of disparate elements in my own life.

Which I guess is part of the ongoing appeal of nights out on two wheels: when you eventually catch up to the ride, you find yourself, too.

Tug

The thing about life is that no matter how long you’ve been living it, there’s always something you’ve never lived through before.

Like the vision of a vertical rainbow column, as fat as your thumb on the horizon, rising straight up to the taffy-pulled clouds, or the long patio of a new old bar which turns out instead to just be the sidewalk.

Sublime and ridiculous merge where heaven and earth come together, so that even those on the lam from themselves can’t help but be entertained by the route, familiar though it be.

One goes on the lookout for the past and finds instead, the present, suspended above a Superfund with the city’s best tableau in the background.  Where else in the world does the amazing appear so commonplace?  No wonder you better guard the jewels; who can pay heed to safety where such scenery abounds?

Moreover, snaking through Mother Earth’s womb never fails to delight; trail all the memories you can, the wonder keg still gets tapped; familiarity may breed contempt with families and food; on bikes, though, the old never ages.

In dog racing, the greyhounds despair of catching that mechanical rabbit, no matter how often they run, but run they still do, seemingly content with the chase—and after all, isn’t that plenty?

It’s not how far the ride goes but how far it takes you and sometimes that’s all the way back to where it began; I’m sure there may have been earlier events but none with such impact, so we’ll call it the first.

All I know is that life’s too short to be filled with so much; there must be an alternate universe where doppelgangers rack up miles in our memories for all these scenarios to unfold over and over again in new ways. 

Perhaps it’s happening between the superstrings of reality like water molecules dividing the sunset into separate distinct hues.

Or maybe it’s just another spinning of wheels.