People wonder why I go for long rides? Well there are many reasons. For one there is only a bit of summer time here in the Rockies. I just love getting up into the high country which around here has so many trails, you can’t do it all in a summer no matter what. Thinking about all those trails makes me link them up in my head and gets me out the door. Plus I really like riding my bike, I like climbing, hike a biking, descending, flowers, rain storms, getting scared shitless by lightening, getting a bit lost, truly love the adventure of it. But the bottom line is when I am out riding for hours on end by, usually by myself, I can focus a bit more on just one thing. Bike riding. Sort of a recess from reality, not that I really escape from thought, stress, although some times I am lucky enough to do so. But when I am pedaling it seems a bit easier to take, easier to not get upset, so much more distracted by keeping myself and my bike in one piece. Yet it all waits for me when I get home. So Ride some more right?

last trail on today’s ride
ended up doing 79 miles, 9500′ of climbing and 9.5 hours in the saddle

Well it is still all here waiting for me. Now I am tired, hungry, sort of wasted from all the hours in the sun, in the saddle. It is even harder to contemplate the solutions to my stress, my worries. Not like I accomplished anything out there except tire myself out, take some pictures, make a mess of my poor bike. All that energy, why can’t I harness a bit of it into taking care of the crap that lingers in the stress stack. A bit of that energy to change the way I go about my everyday, to push me to be more educated, open more doors for my energy to flow into. But instead I lose focus and go right back to riding bikes, wrenching bikes, scraping by, always just making it.

I want more, that is the problem now. For I still have no education, I am 40, I have no money to speak of and not so sure what I can or want to do. Why is it that I refuse to believe in myself, in doing anything I try hard enough to do? I can come up with ideas and then shoot them down so fast they never get a chance to breath. Why not take it a bit further than full of holes and try something, invest my energy in it, make it happen? Because unlike going for a big bike ride in the woods for hours on end, it scares the shit out of me! Sometimes clarity can come to you the key is to hold on to it, make it real. Damn I know I can try harder, life is too big to hide from that which you fear, like a big bike ride, I just got to start pedaling.