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| The old way home..... |
Tight Schedules
A piled up work schedule, clients with needs and changing of the clocks, sure makes it hard to get a good ride in. The weather has also been on the wet side, but the trails are still in great shape. A lot of sneaky slick spots hiding under the blanket of leaves. The heavy tires make up for much of what can't be seen. The trail junction up top going over to Moose Tracks has been closed for several weeks - since just after THE legend and I rode it. This forces me down the old trail that I used to take virtually every night - and that has been worn down over the years. A couple roots and stumps requiring some basic skills rather than what used to be simple roll-overs. Back in the day, riding the "Mule" was much shorter than it is now. It would only provide about 1,070 feet of climbing, with a substantial part of that on oil getting to the trailhead. After coming down, it was straight out to a service road and back to the house. At peak season that would require a little more than one hour of fair to moderate technical riding. Maybe that is why it was so much easier to schedule the rides after work. looking back at a few posts from the year that I broke an ankle, it reminded me of how I would look forward to a quick ride on the dirt after a crappy day in the office. A good ride after a long day in the office, or field keeps things fresh - for sure.
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| The grey days of November |
More perspective
The season has changed completely and rather quickly at that. No leaves on most of the Gamble Oak and Maples. Stands of yellow Cottonwoods still visible from miles away. Some days have more wind, but generally all the riding is met with the calm and quiet of late autumn. There was a day when this particular time of year would have me out in the field with my trusty lab, chasing upland game and water foul. Hours upon hours of pushing brush or cat-tails looking for some jump shooting. The quiet and the smells that come with those particular areas still burn into my memory as if it were only last week. The sound of a rooster kicking up under the feet, as well as that aftermath - it was a lifetime ago. As the days turn to grey, so does life - or so it seems. Talk about quickly changing seasons, a friend of mine from more than 50 years ago is approaching his final stretch - as it were. In my youth he was a giant to me - literally larger than life. He reminded me of Gregory Peck. A rock to all of the younger kids in the neighborhood, it could never be imagined as to what age would do to a guy like that. He was....untouchable. In the last year the age thing as taken its toll. In my most recent visit, it was hard not to see the effects of time and wear. It has happened all so fast - or so it seems. Lets just say I'm seeing a different side to the grey days - and learning to appreciate them more by the minute.
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| Taking time at the top |
A challenge
I have taken too many things for granted over the course of my life. The fact that I can ride right out of my garage to a place like that in the image above, without any special permission, or having to drag my bike somewhere in my truck - it is too easy to take it for granted. Such are so many things in my life. Relationships have been particularly part of this problem. I was recently thinking about several concerts I had attended this particular time of year. In most every case it wasn't the performance I look back on with fondness, but rather the company I would have found myself in back in those days. Too many of those connections are long gone - never to be brought back. My challenge to you; if you still have those connections in your own life, pull them in. That's not to say every friendship from those days would be worth the effort, but many of them certainly are - without a doubt. Don't let those important connections wrought away. Take nothing for granted and make the effort, before you can't.
November 19, 1984; Salt Palace Accord Arena....
Ride HARD!
