Morning Glory Meets Chaos

I woke up bright and early this morning fully determined to get up into the canyons and finally find a way to truly relax this weekend. Ultimately isn’t that what holiday weekends are for? I so badly wanted to have a killer ride and visions of riding to Ojai or Santa Barbara floated through my head as I made my way up the PCH. But it just wasn’t meant to be… To be perfectly honest the outbound leg of the ride was fantastic – early morning light, relatively light traffic conditions, the comfort factor of riding my 999… Yet by the time I hit The Rockstore for breakfast I felt extremely wound up. Usually I work myself into the ride – but not today. For some reason I was unable to capture the early morning magic and encapsulate it for the rest of the ride. Instead I found myself dodging traffic obstacles, cars crossing the yellow in front of me, small animals, the protective gaze of the local law enforcement and seemingly a hundred other impediments. All of which leaves me wondering if I’ve lost the ability to relax on a bike? Has my one sactuary from the real world finally been cracked? All told I ran up over a hundred miles and yet I was completely unable to disengage my mind. That’s not to say that I ride like a zombie – but usually I get lost in the focus of the ride.. But again, not today. Thoughts of work, to-do lists, appointments, and other regular world events floated through my head no matter how fantastic the corners were… It was simply not my day.. Or my weekend for that matter…