Tell Me Something Good
“I’d rather cry in my Rolls-Royce than laugh on a bicycle.”
- Patrizia Reggiani
Growing up, singletrack was the ribbon of dirt that the postal carrier made in the grass between mailboxes. These paths served as a welcomed respite between your bike and the rumbling dump trucks, rusting vans and summertime cars with studded tires. I remember these primitive and sometimes longish stretches as wonderfully dusty and smooth. A ten foot glimpse into a bike equation where asphalt is omitted. There were no trailheads or protected lands and “Farmjunk” wasn’t a quaint trail in Burke, Vermont. Farm junk was indeed various states of decaying equipment being swallowed by hayfields. Those days are now gone like a vanishing plume of diesel smoke and I feel like I won the lottery. Now, everywhere I look, there are places to explore and to move within and so I do.
It’s freezing o’clock on a November blast chiller morning. Slowly, under a full moon, I’m winning a race between warming up and going numb. Tires hum on the cold pavement. I’m on King Road now, en route to our local mountain bike trails and I can feel my nose drip, eventually freezing in puddles on my top tube. The plan is a two hour meandering trip through KP then the Fox Parcel then to Old Gick Farm before circling back home. It’s insulated water bottles and cold toes as I navigate the four miles of asphalt to the trailhead, past the mail carrier singletrack and geocache traffic sign. Then, a quick left on Homestead past the rural clutter and log skidders. Finally, a right on Gailor Lane. I'm surrounded by Kalabus-Perry Nature Preserve in all its recent leaf-blown glory. Somehow the roots are less jarring, the unnecessary turns less dizzying, the lines cleaner and faster. The trails are still frozen and crunchy and grippy and fast. Along the way, I see a hunter sitting miserably in his truck waiting to brave the cold. Coming home, there’s a half-asleep man walking his dog. The sun comes through the trees and the dog smiles up at me. Everything here is perfectly imperfect.
Back at home, Mae says, “Tell me something good.” If only I could remember half of it.
木漏れ日,
Andy
