To Ride or Not To Ride

[Photo by Rick Clemson]

The sun is well past its prime and I’m feeling unbelievably angry — angry at the motorcycle, angry at the mountain, angry at myself, even angry at the new CRG levers…

Because I waited to long to get on the bike and just go…

I let the day slip past me under the false pretenses of a cloud-covered disguise and a morning filled with wasted time. Now halfway through the ride, my penance seems to be a road that’s permeated by an apprehensive collection of near constant tension.

It’s the kind of strain I try to avoid by going for a ride in the first place – but today it lurks under the asphalt like a hunter stalking its prey. Holding low, hiding out, just waiting to see your weaknesses. Waiting for that one single mistake when it capitalize and take charge for the foreseeable future.

And I can feel it bearing down… With each flick of the front end…

The strain of its eyes. The heat from its breath. The emotional turmoil it creates within. It’s the kind of foreboding thought-process that somehow ensnares you – traps you in a self-fulfilling circular prophecy written in your own continual failure.

Worst of all, you witness at each bend in the road; within a missed mark or an overtly loose line or that one stone that somehow stand tall right at the apex… And right now I find myself feeling this amazingly powerful sense of internal rage – the kind of raw, bitter, unrelenting anger that I haven’t felt in ages – because I can’t shake this feeling, I can’t just enjoy the ride, and perhaps most importantly because I – and I alone – created it in the first place…

I decided far to late in the day to go for a ride when I clearly lacked the mental space to enjoy it, and now I’m paying the price, one corner at a time.