It was fantastic to finally get back home and ride the canyons once again after having spent a long and rather cold week on the East Coast. Truth be told the past seven days were filled with all kinds of dramatic ups and downs in a very short period of time. If there were a Richter scale for emotional highs and lows the last week of my life would show a very scattered existence. But then I suspect that shouldn’t be much of a surprise since it simply mirrors the general state of how this month seems to be shaking out. There’s been lots of work, lots of excitement, lots of annoyance, lots of chatter and just about every other emotive feeling in between.
But thankfully there are days like today, when the roads and the bike form a wonderful union that has that knack to take your mind away. It’s a combination that manages to allow you to drift from the everyday. Even though I wasn’t one hundred percent dialed in to the ride because of jet lag, sleep deprivation and mental fatigue, the mere fact that I was even on the bike and out in the open somehow leveled all so many things inside.
Of course coming back to LA after you’ve been away for a little while has always struck me as an odd sensation all its own. Perhaps because when you’re outside of California and people find out where you’re from, they tend to talk to you about it. Someone inevitably seem ask what’s the best part of living there? I’m never quite sure what these folks want to hear and mysteriously they don’t seem to understand when I tell them that for me it’s simply coming back home. It’s when you get off the plane all bundled up in a winter coat and suddenly realize you don’t need it anymore. When you head down the PCH and smell the ocean for the first time after days of looking at barren trees or cornfields or other distinct landscapes. It’s seeing the vibrancy of the city again. Witnessing the Santa Monica streets painted in a hundred different colors. It’s all the little things that I take for granted and seldom remember when I’m here.
It’s a sensation that’s powerful in its own right, but one that only seem to get heightened when you rip through a couple of corners mere hours after arriving at LAX. Shifting side to side on the bike and feeling like you’re connected to the asphalt brings out the best in this town. It makes you aware of what you missed. And then boom, you twist the throttle one more time and hit that next turn and there it is. The whole canyon experience in a corner. The asphalt, the apex, the ocean, the hills, the brilliant blue sky, the pavement that’s laying before your eyes, and the rumbling bike beneath you. And right there in that moment you understand that somehow all of those ups and downs you’ve felt all week aren’t as important as you thought. That the mental energy you spent will come back. That life is ok. And then you realize that you believe. That everything that you’ve been building towards is worth it. That there is something out there to reach for and it is possible after all.
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