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| Pause for reflection London, ON October 2021 This photo originally shared on Instagram |
In the grand scheme of things, a simple bike ride doesn’t really rank. In the cold light of a planet in crisis, one person pedalling through the neighbourhood is as trivial as it sounds.
Yet I still stare out the rain-flecked window and ponder my next move. I’m not yet willing to give in to Mother Nature.
So tea gets made, bananas get eaten, water bottles get filled and the bike gets prepped. Soon enough, I pedal off, the slick leaves on the damp streets singing their seasonal song as my tires roll over them.
It takes a few kilometres to find my rhythm, but by the time I’m feeling my groove, the mist gets pushed out by a growing wind, the skies brighten ever so slightly, and the puddles begin to evaporate. It isn’t glorious, but as October looms, it’s good enough.
We don’t have many days like this left this year, and since I lack the iron stomach to ride on snow and ice, I have to push to get out there now, even when it’s wet and gross and it would be just as easy to stand down for the day.
It’s a lesson in compromise, an acceptance that conditions for cycling - like conditions for anything else - are always subject to countless forces well beyond our control, and as a result will never be as ideal as we’d like.
But still we get ourselves outside into the mist, where the dampness soaks through and makes us question why we’re here.
But that very discomfort is probably the thing that makes it so worthwhile. It’s like experiencing the darkness first so we can particularly appreciate the light.
Or so I convince myself as I lean hard into the next turn and smile madly at the ensuing g-forces.
This life thing. Not always comfortable. But staying inside and avoiding it seems like such a lost opportunity.
So we ride anyway.
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