Friday, October 15, 2010

Year Two

After spending the last week in Montana, we decided to do a familiar Tabor ride for our first time back in the saddle. For Peter, it was the first time riding in at least two weeks. The air is brisk and cool, the sun gentle as we ride off on this beautiful fall day.

While I was in Montana I had my one year anniversary of this blog and I've spent a little time over the last few weeks reading old entries. I usually write my entry while I'm icing my back and spend almost no time editing. It's clear from reading that I'm not so good with commas and hyphens. But, I am so happy that I've been keeping this diary because I've grown so much as a cyclist in the last year. It's fun to have a record of that. If you've been reading along, well, thanks so much for taking an interest in my little story and in my riding.

As we round the top, we see 4 tourists out on rental bikes. They are taking pictures of the city on our first time at the top. On the second trip up they are posing with the statue of Harvey W. Scott pointing towards Portland. As we round the top, they hop back on their bikes, decidedly more well-dressed than we are in our workout clothes and we all barrel down the mountain.

They stop to look at a map and I pull over to chat. They're from Japan and are here for 4 days and yes, they did ride all the way to the top of Mt. Tabor on those city bikes. "Impressive," I said and asked them if I could take they're picture.

Our ride has been over-run with oblivious parents. "Oblivious...oblivious," I sing to the tune of Aquarius. Screaming kids, kids running into the street, kids yelling at their parents "No!" seem to erase parents brains to the fact that getting hit by a bike would really hurt (both of us). I keep yelling out, "Watch out!," but mostly just slow way down so I can stop at a moment's notice. "Looks like fun," Peter says, tongue-in-cheek, as we pass a kid that is screaming at his dad.

As we make our way down after the fourth ascent, Peter remarks, "I'm really getting better at this." That's the beauty of muscle memory. It takes a little while to build it, but once you have it, you have it. It probably helps that we walked/hiked 30+ miles in Missoula.

We make a big circle, riding down the Salmon side and through the neighborhood bike streets, past the library and the school. The leaves are falling slowly and sometimes hit my cheek or my chest as I ride through them. They make a satisfying crunch sound under my wheels. Riding on a sunny fall day on my favorite mountain with my favorite person. I think as I ride that this is a great way to start the second year of my diary.

1 comment:

  1. I had a good chuckle over your comment about "oblivious parents" - if you hadn't posted where you were, I'd say you must be in my neighborhood - haha :)

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