It starts small. A mere tread of a thought. An idea that floats through your mind amid a day that’s filled with miscellaneous events that need attention. At first you push it aside. You tell yourself that it’s not the responsible thing to do. It’s not the prudent course of action. But every time you turn around the concept haunts you. It’s there. Waiting for you at each turn. Gradually as you finish working on each pile of paper that’s been sitting on your desk the same exact thought keeps running back to the forefront of your mind. You need to ride. Not tomorrow and not this weekend, but right now. Today. While sunlight still fills the canyons and there are open weekday roads left to conquer.
Truth be told I rarely ditch out of work early to get a ride in, but today the voice was just to strong. Conceptually I love the idea of riding while the rest of the world is working, but from a practical standpoint it’s awfully hard to get away. I tend to think about quite a bit, but my track record thus far has been rather suspect. I tend to be one of those folks who always feels like there’s something else that can get done. But today something deep inside needed to get away. It needed to feel alive. Needed to remember what it is that I love.
So around noon I hitched up the leathers and headed outbound towards the canyons. At first I wasn’t sure if this was the right decision, but minutes later while I was weaving my way through the mid-day PCH rush I just knew, this was where I needed to be. This was where I felt at home.
Strikes me that every now and then basic humanity requires some level of personal solitude. Some sort of introspective and disengaged moment of time when you allow yourself to only think about what you’re doing at the exact moment you’re doing it. We live in a world of constant noise; TVs, Radios, Computers, The Internet, Phones, you name it, and they all complicate our lives. Sometimes you just need some space from it all. Some critical distance. A chunk of time where it’s just you, and in this case the road. I suppose at its core this is one of the many beauties of riding. It’s a unique activity that allows you to just get up and go. And today I did.
Because I wasn’t one hundred percent focused, I shoot up Topanga Canyon and then popped over Old Topanga in order to get to Mulholland as I eventually worked my way to the Agoura Deli. It’s a ride that I rarely do anymore, but it was the original loop that started this sportbike fiasco. These were the very first canyon roads that I learned to ride. In a strange way it felt good to be back – almost backtracking - on them this afternoon. There was more traffic than I expected, but that was all right. This wasn’t about speed. It was about the ride. About getting out and going. About setting yourself free when your soul asks you to.
I try to ride a lot – well relatively a lot for me – yet I rarely ride on a whim. Usually I know when I might be able to get a ride in or when I won’t be able to hit the road. But today while heading back home after a late lunch, it occurred to me that riding on a whim is in some ways the most emotionally exciting variant of riding that there is. It’s a very different level of satisfaction. You feel more connected. More inspired. More relaxed. Because being able to just go wherever you want whenever you want conjures the greatest notions of riding. It heightens the experience. Makes you more thankful for it. Forces you recognize that while you wish this was the everyday, it’s the exception and not the rule. There’s something uniquely powerful about that. Something that speaks to me beyond words and emotions and miles of open road. Something that beckons to do it again. Oddly I can already hear the little voice starting to ask about tomorrow.
Popularity: 2% [?]
RSS Feed
0 Responses to “Weekday Solitude”