So often the concept of time seems to escape me. Whether it’s because I’m day dreaming about the future or stuck in the past, I rarely have the ability to just buckle down and focus on the present. Perhaps thats why I so enjoy riding, because it affords you the chance to think of little else besides the journey. And today was one of those magical rides that simply didn’t allow for any thoughts that didn’t concentrate on the road or the ride.

For the first time in what feels like forever, it was sunny, warm and the roads were surprisingly clear. A great deal of debris still exists in a number of corners, but thankfully most of the roads were fairly clean. As many of you know, I’ve written about the tremendous volume of recent rain that the LA basin has received over this winter season. the destruction its caused it quite amazing. Las Floras Canyon for instance has four or five newly deployed stop signs in places where the cliff side of the roadway surface has simply vanished into the gulf below. Who knows when caltrans or the like will get around to rebuilding it, but it won’t be soon thats for sure. Certainly not with Topanga Canyon still closed most of the day. Personally, I doubt that the roads held within the Santa Monica Mountains will truly comeback to life for a good six months or so. But at least today they were mostly dry and at this point I’ll take what I can get…

It took me awhile today to get comfortable - obviously due in large part to the road conditions - thankfully at some point during the outward bound portion of the ride I was able to get past all of that and just enjoy being on the bike again. And at that point everything just seemed to turn around. I hadn’t realized just what a toll being off the bike for so long had been. Not in a physical or performance sense, I know the rust will work itself off, but rather in an emotional sense. I can’t really explain it, but when I’m regularly riding once or twice a weekend, everything just seems better. Life seems smoother. Days go by faster. I get more excited for the weekends. I even enjoy the simple parts of my day more. Way back when I first started riding I had no idea that this very singular activity would ever mean this much to me, but it does and perhaps thats why today just getting the Duc up in the rpm range and discretely pushing past the speed limit in certain places made me feel so much more alive than I’ve felt in quite sometime.

A few minor observations from the ride: