cycleology

There are seasons, and there are seasons. Then there is Fall; The Golden time of the year for cycling. Invigoratingly crisp air, crunchy leaves blowing about your way. Every day feels, as my daughter once said. “Brand New.” She once asked me. “Dad, Do You Remember When I Was Brand New?”

Everyday Is Brand New On Your Bicycle. A kind of reset where your priorities instantly change in the direction of fun and adventure in pursuit of one errand or another, usually evolving to a more extended ride home than your errands originally dictated as fun takes charge of your life aboard your bicycle again. I find Cycling exceptionally vivid in fall as if psilocybin was in the air.

The adventurous fun starts when the ball of the foot contacts the pedal, sparking an instantaneous collaboration between brain and body, suffocating you with joy from head to toe and back again and again and again and again. You’ll find it’s always when you’re having fun you’re at your best no matter the task.

I’m not privy to another word for it. Fun. You know what I mean. It takes you instantly three to seven-tenths of a mile later you realize how great you feel. Also, learning how much fun this incredible feeling of fun makes you feel simply by riding your bicycle. It’s Not Rocket Science. It’s Fun. Riding a bike always makes you feel spectacularly alive, engaging all your senses and motor skills simultaneously in a synergistic balancing act that personifies life.

The bicycle is humanity’s finest mechanical achievement. It was downhill after coal was first burned, followed by the second nail in our coffin, the internal combustion engine and its deadly offspring, the automobile.

Someone said: A bicycle Is either: A child’s toy and a rich man’s folly or a poor man’s last resort. The latter for me in 2007.

I lost all but a bicycle, tent, sleeping bag, and JetBoil. Lived in this tent for a year. Four miles from a Rec-Center open at five am with showers, free wifi, and ac 24-7-365. Five miles from a thrift shop for new old clothing. Two miles from a 24-hour grocery store with Patio Set-Up and wifi. I had a home, health club, and office spread out over a five-mile radius, a glorious commute every morning, and rent just suitable for my trickling-down economics.

It Was A Golden Fall In My Tent.

Tent Life is peaceful, calming, and rejuvenatingly grounding in every imaginable contemplation. Surrounding myself with the amenities mentioned earlier, I was fortunate enough to situate my tent adjacent proved elegantly convenient for some necessities.

My quality Sleeping-Bag essential. I retained it from my x-wife. A wedding, birthday, or anniversary gift? Still have it. Those goose-feathers nestled in Gortex saved me from inevitable hypothermic demise that December, January, and February.

My twenty-year-old Diamond-Back was critical to survival and employment that year. I climbed a slew of hills previously deemed ridiculously steep and or long while painting house exteriors. Plenty of ridiculously sized homes atop equally laughable inclines. Most days included twenty or thirty miles of daily commuting on that dependably diverse Diamond-Back in all the weather nature could muster.

I built off the beaten path trails to and from my tent accessing various county roads while creating a network of efficient and scenic shortcuts for the reality of my current Bicycle and Tent Lifestyle. The JetBoil was a tremendous resource as well. Lighting fast coffee, soup, and shaving water. I reminisce about tent life often. It was an experience I do not regret.

This fall, I find it impossible to be too tired to ride even following ten hours in a kitchen. The crisp alluring air is like a transfusion of life with every ride. I’ve had four transfusions many days this fall. I work close to home, 0.7 miles always getting lost in a fall-cycle heading home on one five-mile loop of another. Cycling and fall blend for spectacular synergy; it’s challenging to be off my bicycle in fall.

Here are some highlights from fall in Golden, Colorado. A stunning rollercoaster of seamless concrete along The Clear Creek with a giant-slalom-like descent from Table Mountain traversing Downtown accessing Golden’s new trail system along Clear Creek Canyon.

Whether living in a tent or now a perfectly sized house with an Apple Tree in my yard nature and cycling have sustained and embellished my life in so many fabulous ways, all the while taking me down roads I’d never discovered entrapped within the automobile’s grasp on my life. If I’d stayed in that car I’d not be having these liberating thoughts or any thoughts for that matter.

On your next Fall Bicycle Ride please don’t forget; Spring is just around the corner and these days winter in Golden, Colorado is more like an extended fall.

Ride every day to live every day. Don’t continue letting your life slowly turn to rust in that automobile. If you are making excuses the rust will persist in slowing your life so get on that bicycle and blow the rust off your life before the rust of that capitalistic automobile completely overtakes your soul in this cycle of life.