Sun

I'm listening to Pandora a lot lately, funny how your tastes are your constant even when switching up channels, mentally, musically or philosophically. The music that powers the time on the bike isn't the engine, it's the oil.
Riding the long miles in the sun brings on less fatigue than the shorter winter rides in the snow. The sun adds power, flattens hills, fills muscles, another day over 6 hours is easy, 2 hours in 15 degrees? Hard.

Copper

The early morning light has it's copper hue, not quite bright, and certainly not warm. While the rest of the country sweats I wake to a hoodie and the thoughts of my first hot espresso of the day. Maybe the -30 degree nights we had in February are still chilling things here, at least the snow is faded all the way and it only lingers in couloirs up at 11,000 ft.
My head cold has taken residence in my chest, maybe it'll just move out this weekend but truth is I've been abusing it too. Not really wanting to let up as the weather shifted to proper summer temps and no 3 inches of rain 90 minute deluge.

For all 3 people who read this excuse the mess going on at timfaia dot com while I figure what happened. Sorry.

After Firecracker

I love the crisp fatigue lingering in my legs right now, a hard earned discomfort that is forever mine. I can't take my head out of the good, the bad from yesterday isn't lingering the way it usually does. I went to the place and stayed there, largely in comfort, not knowing what the legs and body could do I just rode the bike and let the sticks fall. The rocks were kind, the shoes now smell like too many late night bar urinals. Easing into recovery is not an option, it all goes back up the tree for Saturday.

I wanted to pull but instead I pushed the whole way today. If this keeps up maybe I'll have some form for about 8 days in November. Unacceptable.

Totals

I keep wanting to go long on a single day, but it seems the cumulative total is getting the marathon closer than the one day sprint. It feels like a cop out though. I want to do the big day of 150-180 miles and days on end of 50-70 are weighing on the system. The legs, shoulders, neck, all of it is getting the work and wearing me down. I want to see the finish line through a telescope. not just up ahead.

Lime

Somewhere around hour 4 it hits me, that subtle hunger at first telling me I've pushed it pretty far but that it's not over. Battles between the hunger and the legs, the motivation and the crisp reward of too much food. After 6 hours a warm bowl of rice with crisp cold veggies and a bit of peanut sauce puts out the fire. Fighting with myself, the battle I KNOW I'll lose never ends. Legs quietly asking for a respite but it feels too good to go without a little longer. Cutting away, always eliminating the extra, cycling by it's very nature is prone to surfeit, extra wheels, extra bikes, extra, extra, extra, the more I ride the less I want in the garage, the less I want to need. The tools are there to cut away at the excess, a constant project of my creation. Off site storage, out of my sight, not pushed in the direction of more, always less, of everything.

Skewed

I'm bargaining again, the not so subtle give and take between what amounts to desperation and success, the measuring stick is faded, about to be resurfaced and re calibrated. I have my own goals, not the regular year in and year out grind, these are coming up different, trying to crisply define a new view. Sleeping on the other side of my head, turning East for South to view my world not changed outwardly but viewed with a better clarity for the importance of intangibles.

Coriolis Effect

I could look it up on wikipedia or simply google it but I'd like to ride from a few hundred miles north of the  Equator to see exactly where the toilet water switches from going one way around the bowl to the other. At the geographical center does it just fall straight down the sides of the bowl? Or, does it go one way in one house and the other way in another house next door? Hmm, I think I could get my head around my quest to shit way to the Equator and beyond! Sure, Google probably has the answer but I'd rather go on a quest. I think South America is the best choice for the search, but then perhaps I could try it on all three continents that are touched by the Equator. How sweet would that be, make a documentary on the subtleties of waste water processing across the developing world. I think I'm on to something here.

Texture

Patterns repeat, that's why they're called patterns, I guess.
The texture changes only slightly but the weave, the essence remains.
No matter; sun, snow, rain it comes back, familiarity bred over years on crystalline layers of sweat, the by product of my work, wasted to everyone but me.
I leave behind a minuscule trail, forgotten tracks but clear and flashing like neon in my head. Never finished, never enough.