ME AND THE BIKE: TOGETHER AGAIN
A few posts back you may remember a story of how an old bike was freed from an 8 year slumber. My bike, a 1994 Diamond Back "Traverse" was brought out of the shed in the back yard. For two weeks I spent cleaning this bike up and preparing it for the big moment. The moment when we'd conquer the roads of this desert city.
Luckily, my friends John and Nick had the week off for Spring Break, leaving us all plenty of time to partake in some outdoor activities. Realizing that I could not ride my cherished bike all the way out to my friends, I dismantled the bike and transported the parts by car. The bike was reassembled as soon as I arrived at John's humble abode.
To clean the chain from years of dust, dirt, and grease... I purchased a strange chain cleaning kit that involved a plastic clamping device full of wheels with brushes attached. The chain would pass through the device and be stripped clean by the thick brushes on the wheels. Despite making a bit of a mess on John's driveway, the device worked quite well and the bike was finally ready for action!
After so long, it's easy to foget the experience of screaming down steep hills at 40 mph's with nothing between you and the air scraping past your skin. The body is also reunited with the experience of trying to peddle back up a steep hill. The body's calves burn like fire as every pump of the leg feels like body's legs are trying to push their way through cement that has almost dried.
This past week I've gone bike riding, hiking, scavenger hunting, you name it. There's an desire within me to keep moving... to keep the blood pumping and to keep the endorphins running into my head. The only problem is, eventually it has to stop. Once you get used to moving around it's hard to sit still. To sit still would mean letting those endorphins die down, the adrenaline fade away, and all the bad feelings you were trying to avoid creep their way back in.
I wrote a severely melodramatic post about that last night, but I took it down as it was nothing more than a fool's lament over the lack of a high. A high that he was using to avoid pain.
