Things My Bike Taught Me

If I ever publish a book, that's likely what I'd title it.

There's a state blissfully devoid of all the usual banalities that occurs when you've pushed your body hard for too long, and it begins requiring conscious thought to breathe. In that moment, thoughts and linkages come, sometimes strangely, and sometimes profoundly.

Case in point:

Bikes are like marriages. You can buy a low end bike from any given store, ride it, and it'll work. Leave it in the garage for a year, let sawdust build up on it and grease harden in the bearings and linkages... and it'll still ride about the same when you take it out.

A high-end bike takes more thought (and possibly debt) to obtain in the first place, and it will ride and work sublimely when you take it out. Leave in the garage for a year, and it'll do its level best to kill you on the trail. Shifters won't, brakes will, but at a volume to raise the dead, things will squeak and chatter... but give it a little maintenance every time before you ride, and the places it can take you are far beyond the reach of the lesser bikes. And with much less butt-hurty, too.

As for marriages... well, you get it.

And, as people keep telling me that I should write, I say this.

I am writing. No book would give me the pleasure of putting something out there for the world to see that chronicles the adventures of our family, that shows the small glories of growing up, or that allows me to express my love and appreciation to the people that matter most to me.

Now, should someone choose to pay me for this, I'm okay with double-dipping. We can have family adventures in a Mercedes just fine.

- Ryan