The View From…Behind a Steering Wheel.

I am bad with time. Not in the sense that I am always running late, or I’m overbooked, but in the sense that hours will last for days and days are sometimes seemingly without end; weeks and months will pass along absent-minded rivers that suddenly dump into an ocean of brisk cold future.

I say this because things got busy: school, work, and life in general made the days incredibly taxing. Mornings started very early, working in a place that requires crossing a bridge, and days ended very late — all excuses that meant riding the bike was going to be put off for a week. Which became, very suddenly, a month. This was going to happen, this distraction.

Some of it was planned. Over the past few months there has been much debate on the Internet about cycling. Vehicular cycling, facilities, stop signs, group rides, bike clubs, Critical Mass, couriers, enthusiasts, commuters, every faction a fraction of the whole. With no regret, I was involved in many a spirited discussion. The Internet is rife with ways to rally people who echo your cause, or having nothing better to do, are willing to participate in an argument. But it also became apparent that there were a lot of critics out there that had only read the lyrics, and not heard the music.

It just so happened that this realization occurred to me at about the same time I was going to have to stop riding for a little while, so I decided to unparticipate.  The first week was easy. There was too much going on in too many different directions: getting settled into a new schedule, accomplishing different things, spending time behind the wheel, hurtling down the freeway at 70 miles per hour. Other times, paused–seemingly eternally–in traffic as others fight to change lanes to gain a car length of distance from another errant driver, only to hit a stop light and pause, gripping their steering wheel in sheer terror of not arriving on time.

Four weeks later, there’s a light coat of dust on my regular bike. My shoes still lay, laces loosened, in the corner where I left them. My bag, of course, moves all over because there’s always something I need from it, or put back into as it will be used “soon”. Who knows where the gloves have ended up at this point.

I put 20 minutes of running in every morning, except Thursdays. It’s kind of like riding, but only just. You start, you “settle” in, you then get that rhythmic flow and find a Bambi-like peace (that is, the deer Bambi), and when it’s done, the blood moving feels good.

You know where this is going. Lacking a ride, at least a little each week, means something is missing. I cover miles upon miles behind the wheel, but other than hearing radio talk that seems to be outraged at everything, I couldn’t give you anything to say what I experienced or even thought about during that time behind the wheel. There’s a lot missing: the early morning streets, the sounds, the smells, running into random friends on bikes, just riding, the comfortable feeling of sitting down at the desk after a quick shower after a morning ride in to work. Not riding leaves the day incomplete.

And those Internet discussions I mentioned have come back to mind.  Some of the participants hold sway in certain positions, some just spend all day online, cutting and pasting from page to page. Frankly, none of them are important. I have friends who are car-free, and others, though having a car, spend most of their time riding because they love riding, not as a hobby, nor as a political statement, nor as a means of self-validation. I’ve met people who’ve incorporated their love of riding into a business, and people who just get out and ride because it’s good. It’s good to ride for the selfish love of it, and not for anything else.

Riding. Man, have I missed that.