Milestones

Here’s the stuff on the back of the baseball card for my cycling year, to mix metaphors and sports.

·       100 miles on Saturday, riding an out and back on U.S. 90 from Tallahassee to Madison

·       At the 93-mile mark of the ride I turned the odometer for the year past 5,000 miles

Round numbers.  Stat nerds will nod in agreement:  Those are counting numbers, reflecting persistence more than extraordinary ability. It’s true. It’s only possible for me to reach such a round number as this by getting out on the road on my bike weekend after weekend. Only two weeks this year, one in February and another in November, do not include some miles recorded on the bike. The miles add up on their own.

Pursuing a round number belies my claim I’m not particularly interested in the mileage. My primary motivation to ride is not exercise or racking up numbers on my tracking app. Those are happy byproducts, but not the main attraction. Most of all, I ache to get outside, to see the places around me, to experience the topography, the landscape, the people and how they orient themselves relative one to another.  Riding my bicycle to Madison, for example, gives me a very good idea how far it is from Tallahassee, the terrain between here and there, and what the ground is like – there’s a lot of it not ground at all, but swamp punctuated with cypress knees below and Spanish moss above. This happens in a way it can’t from behind a windshield. I knew Ray Charles was born in Greenville, as another example, and I even knew the city erected a memorial to the American genius, but it’s impossible to understand this in context unless you see it and then you understand how small and poor and bypassed Greenville is, bonus for getting to it under your own power and understanding what it took to leave.

Then there are the joys of riding my bicycles, wheeling out on a cool morning before a hot day gets started, startling a heron in a mill pond between ridges of rolling hillocks, and feeling as if I might just keep riding this time, keep going and not come back.

This year, especially, the joys of freedom concomitant with the bicycle were vital. Lockdown did not change much for me, only cutting down restaurant meals. The pandemic is a pervasive presence, though, weighing us all down even in blithe Florida where most of the population has long ago returned to its normal routines at Hooters and the Governor’s Mansion. COVID-19 did cancel the big summer ride for me and Avery, so the mileage usually added during those tandem adventures was replaced by solo rides for the most part. The time spent with Avery in the stoker seat and pedaling beside friends came during relatively few miles, but were among the most memorable.

No doubt the pursuit of 5,000 miles in 2020 was a focus and motivation, certainly in November and for sure on Saturday. I was under 100 miles to reach the 5K. It was a near certainty I would make it over the line after a 100-plus second weekend in December. With the finish line so clearly in sight, it struck me I could wrap up with a flourish and rack up a century to seal the deal.  The cherry atop it all was my pursuit of another Florida courthouse for my personal photo gallery, every one reached on two wheels, save one. It was a great day to be there for a pic. The sun shone brightly and Madison’s courthouse lawn was decorated with ornament-laden Christmas trees. The photo thus places it in time and on the globe, with the palm tree gracing the frame.

A milestone can easily become a millstone. My various motivations kept this from being so, my joy in riding saving the pursuit of a mileage goal from becoming a burden or an overweening focus of what was, in fact, an escape and an education. I rode my bike 5,000 miles in this deadly, ruinous year.

I am not suggesting there is redemption or meaning in my pedaling. No virtue is claimed or accepted. It is only through privilege and fortune I am able to ride at all, much less do so with the regularity required. I have a job and a schedule flexible enough to allow me the time. I have the resources to have reliable, efficient, performance bicycles and the equipment to ride them with as little friction between my abilities and realizing how far they take me. There is only redemption in this year, in any year, by working to confront and end injustice, committing to kindness and generosity, in spreading love and hope where tragedy and pain so readily thrive. Miles on a bicycle do nothing for those imperatives, but they can provide the solace and the environment to reflect and, in turn, act. So, yes, 5,000 miles and a century ride to get there. But so what without doing something with real worth. Love one another.

It was 37 degrees when I first pushed off. Cold, but not dangerous – the sun shone brightly through the pines and oaks – and no threat of rain. My only constraint was the limited daylight of the fourth-shortest sun day of the year.  Mobius Trip, the whip I rode the majority of the miles in 2020, performed in the smooth, dependable, comfortable way it has since I first got in its saddle in May. The weather warmed up by the time I got to Monticello. Beyond the Jefferson County seat I was riding in new territory on U.S. 90. Turkey, deer, hawks, herons, egrets all graced land adjacent to the highway. Little traffic bothered me. I visited places I’d never been, saw sights that made me smile, took pictures of historic markers, warmed myself in the sunshine, and only yelled out once “Slow the fuck down, why don’t you.”

It was a perfect day to realize this finish. It remained cool enough even into the afternoon I could keep on all the layers I’d donned to make it through the first hour. I felt strong throughout. My plan, such as it was (I took a cue sheet, noting landmarks and convenience stores, but did not refer to it), came through as intended. I ate lunch in Madison, took pictures of courthouses along the way, got back in time to enjoy the iced beer I’d left myself with an hour of daylight remaining before ascending my own personal pretend podium for the imaginary presentation of roses from a beautiful woman. I did feel a sense of accomplishment, but not for that day, not for the big number posted this year. Rather, I accomplished what I wanted for my head and my heart and my health and my wellbeing. Good feeds on good and in this year we all spent in our heads way too much, I can recall every single one of those 5,000 miles as a release from anger and despair and frustration.

I am full to the brim with negative ions and joy.