Remembering Why I Love To Cycle!

It is getting toward the end of the season for me....and honestly I am getting a bit tired of all the regimes and
routines and  ultra early morning rising...driving 40 miles for a ride start... and sometimes with all the push, push push of riding with a team and completing certain goals and mileage, I forget why I love to cycle.

But today, as I cycled out to San Felipe, it all came back to me quite clearly!

I like to stop and talk to horses.  This horse was so striking in his pure blackness.I saw him  on the way out north... probably on the Santa Ana rez.

I like to adventure and discover new things.  I like to see all the little things that I miss when cycling in a large group or travelling by car...the little out of the way places..the little stores, the homes tucked away..the bull that is for sale...or the homemade beef jerkey that is the specialty of the owner of the only market in sight! 

I love to be outdoors with the wind in  my face smelling the clean fresh air..smelling the  fragrant undertones of green chile roasting.... going at a good speed, but never going so fast...that speed is my goal...I want to smell the roses and stop if I see a good photo op.  Sometimes I have to back up...or scurry forward straddled over my top tube,.,,,skittering along uphill in my cleats....for a moment,,,looking ,,,looking.... to get that perfect shot.

On the bike,once the body settles into its rhythms and is not doing its initial complaining, you can find the  contemplation and quiet in the movements.  The body remembers.  Then the mind chimes in... how it was that you rode this same road a while back...only you struggled up that hill with more trouble the last time!  It remembers the  rough pavement and how it decreased your speed....it remembers the weather, the wind, the heat or cold.....the senses do not forget.

Finally,when the mind quiets, the internal silences are cushioned by the hum of traffic far and near.... your tires and their friction on the  road, the swish of the leaves and branches, the wind  and the deep bases of low riders as they cruise by.  It almost feels like you are flying though space!

It is wonderful to make the time to cycle for fun...without a goal....just to  have fun and enjoy myself and reconnect with WHY I  started to cycle in the first place!
Cece