Clearing My Head
After 2+ days of sitting in a hospital with my dad, I went home last night absolutely wired from too much caffeine and inactivity. I knew the only solution to that was to get out and do something, so after supper I grabbed the Surly and set out for an evening ride.
As I left the neighborhood, I was amazed at the amount of color that is now visible in the trees. We were seeing some color on Saturday, but it seemed like things just exploded in my absence.
It was nearly dusk by the time I got out, so I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was taking a “night ride” and stopped several times in the first few minutes to grab a quick picture in the fading daylight.
By the time I got out to Turners (5 miles), it was full-on dark, so the remainder of the ride was calm and quiet as night rides are often apt to be.
I enjoy taking the Surly out after dark or before daylight because it is just about the perfect bike for that. It’s fast enough that you feel like you’re flying through the night, but not so fast that you’re liable to overextend yourself by outrunning your beam of light and putting yourself in harms way.
If you’ve never ridden out in the country at night, you need to try it at least once. It’s so peaceful and quiet, with just you and the bike traveling down the tunnel of light thrown by your headlight. Without the benefit of being able to see my computer, I can only judge my speed by how it feels and by how hard I’m working. If you would have asked me if I was going fast, I would have said, “Heck yeah! I’m flying!” In reality, I wasn’t flying, but I wasn’t loafing either.
As I came down the hill at Turners, a little voice in my head told me I better not bomb down the final hill at the creek, and I’m glad I listened. Because of the storms we had over the weekend, the creek had been over the road and left a very wet, slimy patch of mud that wouldn’t have been good to hit at 30 mph. At 12 mph, though, I had plenty of time to see it and react accordingly.
I pulled into the garage about 8:00 PM with 23 miles under my wheels and a head that was in a much better place than when I started! You can click the map above for the full GPS track.
God bless…
TW
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October 20, 2012 at 11:08 am
Aren’t we blessed to have found an activity that does not harm us, but benefits us? Glad you got the cob webs out.
October 22, 2012 at 5:46 pm
How’s your pop doing? Hope all is well as possible.
October 22, 2012 at 7:08 pm
Thanks for asking….
He got released to a nursing home late Saturday evening for rehab and recovery.
In addition to the high blood pressure, diabetes, and alzheimer’s, he had a car wreck a week ago last Saturday evening, breaking his right arm, his right ankle, 5 ribs on the left side and shattering his left hip. Rather than attempting to repair the hip, we went with a full hip replacement at the recommendation of the ortho doc.
With those types of injuries, it’s going to be hard to rehab him. With the hip replacement, it’s critical to get up and walk as soon as possible, but with that broken ankle it’s not possible, so we’re concerned about how much of a recovery he will end up making. They got him into a wheel chair today for the first time.
Other than that, he’s doing pretty good for the situation. For some reason, he’s not been in much pain, which has been a blessing.
TW Tracy & Pam Wilkins Springfield, MO http://www.springfieldcyclist.com
October 23, 2012 at 4:46 am
You’d commented on the accident last week when I wrote a post about my dad… I know how the rehab thing goes with older folks – it takes a lot of want to. We’ll keep you and yours in our thoughts and prayers.