The Red Barn Ride in Autumn

"I hope I can be the autumn leaf

who looked at the sky and lived.

And when it was time to leave, 

gracefully it knew life was a gift."

Dodinsky

 

 

This is probably not the wisest thing I have ever done, not canceling my 64 mile, moderately hilly ride, but I am so looking forward to it after a hiatus from the bike due to illness and then injury.  And I have been conservative up until now, sitting around the house reading and using the computer and watching television until I want to scream.  I learned a long time ago that trying to ride or work out through injuries normally backfires and costs you even more time off the bike and more time unable to work out.  I have always believed that things happen to us for a reason, that there is something we are supposed to learn from the experience, so perhaps it is to aid me in acquiring more patience, a virtue I lack. 

 

 Yes, I rode a century two week-ends ago, but I was off the bike with a stomach bug that caused me to  lose 7.5 pounds in two days prior to that (negative COVID test)  and did not ride afterward as I developed an injury of the neck/upper arm/shoulder.....still not really sure or sure what caused it.   Per Gabe Mirkin, whose newsletter I adore, in just two week of inactivity we lose a tremendous amount of strength:  https://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/inactivity-causes-muscle-loss.html.  I believe him.

 

When making my decision, I decide that if I find I am in pain after a few miles, I will turn around and sweep the route by car.  I truly don't want to miss what is left of the fall.  I hope to see it from the seat of my bike, but if I have to turn to my car to see it I will.  What a wonderful thing eyesight is.  I think of my mom and how macular degeneration changed her life.  Before she developed it, I had never heard of this cruel disease that steals the central vision leaving only peripheral vision.  Better than total blindness, but still such a loss.   How important it is to squeeze every drop of beauty out of life while we can and to savor it and hold it dear, to look at the sky.  Our time is so short. 

I change the start time to a bit later due to the predicted cold temperatures.  Still, it is in the 30's when I arrive at the forestry.  I think how each year I have to relearn how to dress for cold weather riding.  I tend toward overdressing and that causes dehydration problems.  Drinking is always hard in the winter when it is cold and that exacerbates any overdressing.  One would think that I would learn, but it never seems to sink in.  I relearn this lesson every fall when the temperatures drop, just as I later will remember that there is beauty in the stark quietness of the winter landscape. 

 

With the frigid weather and a century on the schedule, I wonder if anyone will show despite the fact it is supposed to warm up to the sixties. I always wonder that, as if I could not ride on my own and enjoy it. Yes, regardless, I will ride.  Today is the Red Barn ride, and I like the route.  I suspect that Eden and Delaney Park roads will have some color to them.  It has enough climb to be interesting, one hill that is challenging, and scenery ranging from forest to farm land.  Plus, it is low traffic. 

As it turns out, there are ten riders.  Two of them I don't know very well.  We have met on prior rides I have put on the schedule and spoken a few words, but never had a true conversation.   Four of them I don't believe I have met before.  The two I have met are very strong riders, and it obvious that the group of six know each other and plan on riding together.  Despite my urging them to feel free to start ahead of the scheduled start time, something that is allowed and even encouraged by the club due to COVID and trying to keep groups to small sizes, they wait and we leave together.  But that is the last we see of them.  By the time we reach the store stop, they are long gone.  I am so glad that there was a group of fast riders because I know I am NOT going to be fast and I don't want to hold anyone back. And I don't want anyone riding alone unless that is their choice for the day.

I end up riding the entire ride with Mike Crawford, John Pelligrini, and Paul Battle.  I don't know if I am riding better than expected or if they are being kind, but they match my slow pace.  I strongly believe they are being kind as I know how powerful each of these men are on a bicycle. I grow slower in the fall every year, and with being off the bike for three and half weeks I am slower than normal. But we all seem comfortable with the pace and with each other.  We discuss politics and other issues and the miles simply fly by.

 

Paul mentions how different the course looks when we pass fields that have been harvested.  For some reason, the stubble always reminds me of a man who shaves regularly but has missed a day or two, perhaps because he is on vacation.  Suddenly I am back in the mobile home we lived in when the children were little remembering how when my son was small, he loved it when I would let him put shaving cream on his face and use a razor that was covered to shave himself.  I see him at the mirror, as serious as can be, as if there were even a hint of fuzz on those smooth cheeks, patiently shaving.  But with company, there is not much time for reflection.  

 

John mentions the woolie worms that seem determined to cross the road to wherever they are going and how many there are, but I think they are small in number compared to a few years ago.  I wonder if a new pesticide is what has decimated their ranks.  We certainly have not had exceptionally cold weather the past few winters that would have done this.  Always they are a sign of the coming winter and the change of seasons.

As usual when I ride with company, I don't notice my surroundings nearly as much as I do when I am alone, but it is pleasant being with friends and occasionally the beauty of a particular view takes my breath away.  This is the case on the descent down Old 56, a long, slow 2 mile descent near the end of the ride.  I seem to be in a tunnel with walls made of yellow and orange.  The wind tosses leaves like confetti. And in the midst of the beauty I realize I am really tired and my neck in starting to hurt a bit.  I am glad we near the end and slow further worried that pushing may hurt more than it helps.  I counsel myself to patience.  

It is no longer cool.  I am not sweating, but I think I would be if it were not for the strong wind.  The sky has been blue but is beginning to cloud over, but still is it a gorgeous fall day.  The company and the scenery did not disappoint.  Life is, indeed, as noted by Dodinsky, a gift, as is friendship and and the autumn of the year, and of course, bicycles.  Yes, I hope when my time comes, I leave gracefully, grateful for my time here.  But I also hope that time is many, many years away.  I have more living I would like to do, much of it on bicycle. 

Painless in Paoli

"The foliage has been losing its freshness

through the month of August, and here and there a 

yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair 

amidst the locks of a beauty  who has seen one 

season too many..."  

(Oliver Wendell Holmes)

It is beautiful this time of year, there is no doubt about it.  There is a feeling of anticipation, the knowledge that things are about to change and change significantly.  No more the long, steamy daylight hours of summer to dance through with my bicycle gloriously unfettered.  While the weather is exceedingly pleasant, the lessened daylight hours make it feel as if there is less time, less time to do those things that need doing so that one can rest easy in the winter patiently waiting for spring to oust the cold and snow.  And there is less time if you want to ride in daylight, to feel the sun beating down, warming you, making you sweat.  Rides become more hurried, less tolerant of unnecessary delays.  Gone the days of lolling in the grass mid-ride talking or dreaming.  Lights are attached to bikes in case of problems.  There is less room for error.

The squirrels have been particularly active this year, crossing the road with a suicidal, wild abandon that is uncharacteristic the rest of the year. It is as if their timidity is shuttled to the back of their minds in their determination to gather and store food for the winter.   The harvest takes precedence over all else.  The farmers also have started the reaping, corn cobs littering the roads, dust thick and heavy in the air as  you ride by if they are working near the road, covering you with grit. 

I am glad I did not talk myself out of riding with the group today, although it did cross my mind.  I remember the difficulty of this course, Painless in Paoli, and grin again at the thought of Kirk's post after the ride last year:  "Painless, my ass."  When you are not training, it is all too easy to avoid challenging rides, to forget the satisfaction that effort can bring, the blessed tiredness that aids sleep and blessed unconsciousness later when night falls.  It is all too easy to forget the spectacular scenery that you can earn only through the climbs and the hilly terrain, those scenes that flatland riders never get to experience. This particularly holds true when one is not training for something or when one is depressed and has to literally demand going out the door, when riding is a duty and an obligation and not a delight.  Is it enough not to just ride?  Must one also ride hills? 

I still need to force myself out the door at times, but  more and more often I manage to give myself a resounding yes and a kick in the rear.  While it is still dark outside when I leave for the ride start, I know daylight will have stretched out, yawning in pinks and grays and purples, across the horizon before we begin.  What I don't know is that later today I will come as close to taking a serious spill as I have come in quite some time now. 

Tony and I are riding along and there comes a delicious descent, the kind you reach after a good climb, the kind you can swoop down laughing and grinning ear to ear while the wind yells, "slow down, you idiot."  How I love descents.  At the bottom, however, a large, tan dog lays in wait.  I am almost on top of him before I see him rushing out, and I expect to go down knowing the collision is inevitable and hoping that he doesn't savage me once I fall.  Amazingly, while he hits the middle of my front wheel and breaks the light holder off of my fork, I am able to lean into him and somehow I bounce off of him and remain upright. 

I stop to check on him and he gives me such a look of reproach it is almost comical, particularly in light of how close I was to going down and going down hard.  "Don't you know when a fellow is just playing," he seems to ask. "You play too roughly."  He then runs off.  I knock on the door to let the owner know, but nobody answers.  Tony waits patiently while I write a note to the owners briefly explaining what happened and saying I hope their dog is okay.

The rest of the ride is uneventful, but it is filled with companionship and lovely vistas, the sights, smells, and sounds you know you will miss like the dickens when it is cold, windy, and wild outside, the kind that bring a tinge of melancholy because summer green is fading:  summer beauty always ages and fails despite  our best efforts.   But there is still beauty to come, the beauty born of endurance and of weathering the spring, summer, and fall:  life's seasons.  It may just be that we need to develop a special eye to see it.  To me, my mother, 98years old,  is still beautiful despite her wrinkles, her dementia, her blindness.....she is my mother.  And the earth will be beautiful as well.  It is all, as they say, in the eye of the one who beholds her.  "Let us give thanks for those blessings that we are about to receive." Amen.