YO! It is entirely possible that forcing myself to route these rides is the healthiest thing I've done this winter... Today was especially ironic, as my mind got to wander all-hell-and-gone around Aquidneck Island. Newport has always seemed like a pretty amazing place, but my natural inclination in the summer has always been to leave-it-to-the-tourists and their innumerable vehicles. But once I began to think about experiencing the place on a
bike, well, just perhaps, it might not be totally untenable. Make no mistake: there must be no allusions that riding a bicycle around Newport in the "high" season is going to be a picnic. But dodging traffic on Cranston's Park Avenue during my three-season bike commute isn't a cake walk either. But so far, so good. It is all of-a-piece, this being on two wheels stuff. You have to triple your defensive riding quotient, just to make it a far fight. Make no mistake about it: these are
not bike paths out there. We are talking about that full immersion "Share the Road" experience, and sometimes with fellow citizens who can scarcely be bothered. That much acknowledged, let's defer to the immortal words of our expensive-footwear friends:
Just Do It! Just get on the bike and slowly ramp-up to whatever level of riding you'd like to do. There is a training program that preps mere mortals like me to go out and clock a hundred miles in a day and actually want to come back for more the next day. Who knew? And it starts with 45 minutes on that thing sitting there in your garage.
But enough from me. More of the good stuff from that Bill Strickland character, the guy who pulled together all those "Great Moments of Bicycling Wisdom, Inspiration and Humor," aka
The Quotable Cyclist:
When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far far away from civilization. the world is breaking some else's heart.
-- Diane Ackerman, literary writer, poet, author of
A Natural history of the Senses,among other works
The Quotable Cyclist, at page 20
Better to ride than not. -- I said that...
