Home for Bikes

Good Morning -

As you can see from the Virgen, I need a home where I can ride my bike (I don't need to differentiate, do I?, that sometimes when I say "home" I mean the physical structure (see dancing in kitchen in red party dress for more) and sometimes when I say "home" I mean the general area around that physical structure (see this entry for more...).

I love riding my bike and haven't really lived in a place where I could do it freely since I left Denver 10 years ago.

In San Antonio, besides that it was hot and humid for a big chunk of the year (or cold and humid, or tepid and humid, or...you see, don't you?, how sucking wet air into lungs isn't the best of fun), the drivers there weren't really ones who embraced the idea of Share the Road. Somehow I managed to do the MS150 there one year (San Antonio to Corpus), and all along the way I heard stories from other bikers about the beer bottles, beer cans, and other WMD that were hurled at them from passing pick-ups as they tried to ride down the road.

While no frothy beverages were hurled my way on the few times I tried to go for a ride, I had experienced enough honking and swerving towards me while trying to hug the shoulder that I decided it wasn't really the place to ride.

In Arizona, the drivers were a little better, but the weather was much worse. You just can't ride when it's triple digit heat for double digit days in a row. You just can't.

Yes, yes. I know lots of people do and I know that if they read this, they would offer all sorts of ideas about how one can ride bikes in southern Arizona (go for a ride at 3 a.m. before the sun rises because then it's only 92 degrees...), but I never enjoyed it. I was able to use my bike as transportation during the last year of grad school, and that worked, but I never just got on and thought, "I'm going to just ride for a few hours because it's just so beautiful here and this weather is perfect." No.

Here, though, there's lots of riding to be had. I love riding all around the foothills on roads that are rarely used and windy and move through meadows and along creeks and, if I've had a good breakfast or am feeling daring, up a steep hill, through pine trees, to a vista that takes your breath away more than any hill could.

I did a couple of MS150's here, but the most I ever rode was the last one I did. They rotate between routes south one year and routes north the next. This was a north route, so it started in Longmont, went to Ft. Collins and circled back to Longmont the next day.

I was living in Denver at the time, and had no car, so I rode to the bus station downtown, took the bus to Boulder, rode from Boulder to Longmont, joined the ride, chose the 100-mile route, (I feel a bit like a boy bragging about sport stats here...really, I'm not - it just was an amazing weekend of riding...), went up over the mountains, down into Estes Park, around into Ft. Collins, slept on a gym floor, and circled back the same way the next day (Ft. Collins to Longmont to Boulder to bus to Denver to ride home).

It was amazing. More crazy is that I had just started smoking a few months before so not only did I fill my lungs with smoke at the end of that 100+ mile day, but I was a baby smoker so thought that Malboro Reds were the best choice in cigarette. Lord.

Now that I'm a retired smoker, have given my lungs some time to heal, and live back here in Colorado, I'm excited about riding again. It's getting to be cool weather/short days time, but I still think I can get in a couple of good weekend rides before it's time to put my beloved bike up for the winter.

And what sort of bike is capable of logging so many miles? I stretch to remember the brand (...Miyata), but remember that it was the culmination of a summer spent cashiering at Wal-Mart between my freshmen and sophomore years at CU and I bought it at a bike shop over by Swedish Hospital. Every cultish cheer for Sam Walton at the beginning of the shift, every overring, every long, stupid line of carts full of internationally exploitative products was worth it to get my bike. I love her and she's...wow - 16 years old. Fantastic.

Here's to that. Here's to bikes that you love. Here's to areas to ride them. Here's to quiet, winding roads that lead to knock-you-on-your-ass vistas and here's to afternoons with nothing but time to ride.

Oh - remind me - when I'm done with the Home series (11/19), I want to do some Virgens around the experience I'm having lately of my Grown in the Last 10 Years Me with the stories and people and experiences I had here before all that good growth and not being entirely sure how to reconcile the past ideas and experiences with this new bit.