No Plans

Posted by Charles Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:44:00 GMT

Guided by dubious forecasts and a lack of faith in the ability of any tool at my fingertips to be able to predict the weather, combined with friends that are either out of town or unusually tied to their desks, I approach this Monday with no ride plan. One thing that keeps me sane and reasonably healthy while working the schedule I do, on the diet of food and drink that I do, is my Monday ride. I have had the support, encouragement, companionship, and abuse of a semi regular cast of characters over these last three years to get out on this day of the week for what I hope is a calorie deficit social event, and to not have that on this day is unusual, and significant, but not unheard of.

This also happened in the middle of last June and while I don’t recall the circumstances, I do remember I had no group to ride with. The result had me reaching for an unfamiliar bike the night before, in this case my partner’s singlespeed Chameleon. In my chosen occupation, I am encouraged to a certain extent, as well as naturally inclined, to keep current with gear and technology by playing with it, caressing it, and yes, taking it out on my Monday rides. I want to have a relevant answer to a set up question, an opinion about tubeless tires, experience with suspension tuning, and a grasp of the nuances of differences in several high quality suspension design and applications found a few feet from where I type this. I have at my disposal an array of bikes optimized for different terrain, distance, surface and humidity, bikes that I own, or that the shop owns, or are here with the intention to be loaned out, and then there are the bikes that need an extended test ride, the ones with a noise, shift malady, or other malfunction that might only show up an hour into a long ride, and then under duress. I walked past a row of bikes, and then more bikes, and chose this one, partially because it was close to the door, but mostly because it already had pedals on it that fit shoes I wanted to ride in the next day. Not my normal criteria, but a standard that fit what I was trying accomplish, or avoid, the following day.

With no plan from the beginning, and no agenda, I meandered through breakfast and the newspaper, then my dresser and out to the truck. This simple bike, with no rear suspension, a worn out rear tire, and solitary gear choice didn’t beg for any attention. I didn’t measure the Chameleon’s seat height, check the shock pressure, or lube the chain, and I don’t think I had a destination worked out by the time I was rolling out of the driveway, but I did end up at an old familiar haunt, the scene of many a Monday ride. The ride aspect of my day, and prep for the day, turned out to be pretty mindless, and wonderfully so. I was rewarded with clear blue skies, wonderful temps for getting a good work out, and seized the opportunity to sit on Jim Owen’s bench and just look out, to look at the slide in Nisene Marks and imagine the hawks that ride the thermals there, enjoy the haze over Monterey Bay and the way the Peninsula just sort of vaporizes into it near the beach. I listened to sounds of bugs and wind and my own breathing, and thought about being in this place and time, and having the ability to do just this. Its too frequently lost on me how fortunate I am, and in the constant din of work and play, conversations and situations, in set up and tear down, prep and repair, I take too few breaks to remind myself. My investment in this day was minimal, and the return was just spectacular. I’ll try to do it again tomorrow, and hopefully without trying too hard.