Feel it or Not, it is very real to me...

As you my lovely audience have recognized with your infinite wisdom and capacity to see the obvious, the posts here at the Traffic Stop have dried up as of late.  My will to write about what I see as true going on around me collided with the searing reality that I may not have the guts to do it.   A short list of recent actual events which have driven me to blog block comes to mind:  Radok's murder, the devastating larger than Haiti sized earthquake destruction in Japan, a new billion dollar presidential approved contract on war killing more innocents in Libya while we as a people keep up the rationalizations in the form of separating the physical reality from how we feel, the big win 'taking out' OBL, no jobs, yet there is plenty of work to do all around us, the connection between continent sized storms dropping huge fatal tornadoes out of the sky in the center of this fine nation and the amount of chaos we project globally with American made weapons in trade for it all.
 
I know, I know, if you don't read the paper, look at the news, or talk to some smart folks from Europe these items could easily be dismissed in the form of rationalization that the trade is worth it and its end result does not affect you.  My realization is different than most, has been since Christmas day when I was seven years old.   What I see happening right now is a direct connection between American made military weapons, the daily death of innocent lives of all ages and a nation desperate to keep that form of progress going infinitely into the forward future.  None of this causes me to live in fear or some sort of perceived state of unhappiness.  Like someone smart once told me when we were discussing how many people take corporate produced pharmaceuticals three times a day to achieve whatever grace they are seeking, "The cure for unhappiness, is happiness."  My time here cannot be spent chasing an ultimate goal of something as whimsical and unattached from what is really going on around me as happiness.

Self Portrait roughly 25 minutes before cracking, or better yet being cracked by Jwaye near the end of our 107 mile (173.4km) ride.

Besides the normal bike bound work and commute week, the past several weekends have been rather interesting on the ride front.  50 miles south of Charlotte, 75 miles (Spamerton), 107 miles of Smoot's best century, 77.5 miles east of here out of the house solo.

Notable points of interest:  These were all fixed gear rides.  The first three rides listed above were done with one other rider, Jwaye.  She is a crusher who has only been riding for a few months and while we were riding the 107, at mile 102 inbound on the other side of the airport she decided to destroy my will to live by opening it up on Wallace Neel.  As she pulled away I thought to myself, no way, she cannot have this in her.   Reaching into my man purse of courage I tried to stay on however there was only a little bit of lint in the bottom of the satchel.  My heart was well over 100bpm at 6hrs and 40 something minutes in.  Could I be about to have a massive heart attack?  Does Jwaye know CPR well enough to keep me alive until MEDIC can find me?  The tall Swede, some 15 years younger than I danced across the tarmac at 46x18 disappearing off the front of my view.  She had to be going 25mph, either that or I was down to a 4mph crawl.  Demoralized, with cement filled legs like I never remember experiencing, my life spark was squelched in the hot heat, but I had to keep going to finish the ride so I did.  My heart continued to leap inside my chest cavity creating a 3D hologram image of itself (the muscle that pumps life through my body) on the movie screen in the front of my mind.  It looked like it was alone speed lurching almost spasmodically inside the protection of my rib cage.  But then my mind and brain housing group befriended it making me feel more alive than I had been.  During that twenty minutes of the ride, time stopped completely.  I cannot ever remember being that cracked on my bike...

Self Portrait one week after the 107 mile cracking.  At the time I made this picture (75k into the 125) I was feeling great and recovered from the spanking I took earlier in the week. Yes, standard and metric talk can get slightly confusing to understand scale when used together, either way it is BIG and only math. 

*NOTE:  To those of you paying attention, I have (4) serviceable UXC jerseys left in my lycra drawer, and no, it is not the only jersey I own.  New clothes are for Canadians...


Last weekend's 125km solo effort wound up being a great recovery transfer.  The first 20km was with Stuckey before he took ill and had to turn around in the oppressive asphalt, my fault upper nineties heat.  Then, just over 105k alone with my body, mind and single speed machine.  Jerry's route that he had passed to me via email was beautiful.  There were rolling hill climbs that seemed innocuous compared to the ones I had faced in the previous weeks out west of town towards the foothills.  Crossing the formal Amish settlement that is Lentz Harness Shop Road was the highlight of the ride.  At the start tall pines lined the road on one side, and huge round hay bales dotted the open expanse of fields on the other.  Gentle climbs up a bit through the pastoral arena led to a turn near an old farmhouse.  Then, all of a sudden the road surface went to dirt.  Yes, dirt.  Nothing lifts the spirits on a long road ride alone like hitting an unexpected section of dirt, nothing.  Goody, I thought to myself as I looked out ahead seeing the gray ribbon of hard packed dirt roll over the green landscape in front of me disappearing at the visible horizon several thousand meters away. 

Those long minutes in the saddle draw my attention to how important living in the now actually is...