Night Riding
From a distance, the chaos is beautiful.
Immediately my mind is taken back in time 3 hours: my evening ride home from work, dodging cars and people, obeying signs, lights, and lanes; the commute, my cyclical attempt at surviving the daily grind.
But now, I’m above it all. Literally. As I rest at the break point midway up the mountain I turn off my helmet light and notice I almost don’t need it; the trees have broken away offering a full panorama of the city below me. A million points of light twinkle in silence moving to and fro. The highways look like living creatures; ancient things, dragons maybe. My brain is short on oxygen and I let it run wild. Up here I feel like a king surveying my lands; I raise my hands to exaggerate the effect. It is so strange how the chaos that enveloped me just hours ago can feel so different, so removed from the dark mountain; and not just physically but metaphorically. Down there people are toiling around with the trappings of modern life; jobs, families, entertainment, but up here things are primal; just me, a dark mountain and the bike.
As I turn from the city and continue the climb the trees once again envelope me and complete darkness returns. The only lights now are the stars; back to basics, back to the purity of the ride.
Night riding forces a disconnect with the superfluous elements of life even more so than day-time riding. When the only spot of illumination is where your lamp points that is where your focus must always be, a fact I am reminded of as my mind drifts back to the city vista resulting in my tires momentarily sliding out from under me. It is not surprising that when you live in the chaos of the city it is hard to focus the mind on one object. But the challenge is to be cherished; I’ve yet to find another activity that offers such a vivid challenge.
Immediately my mind is taken back in time 3 hours: my evening ride home from work, dodging cars and people, obeying signs, lights, and lanes; the commute, my cyclical attempt at surviving the daily grind.
But now, I’m above it all. Literally. As I rest at the break point midway up the mountain I turn off my helmet light and notice I almost don’t need it; the trees have broken away offering a full panorama of the city below me. A million points of light twinkle in silence moving to and fro. The highways look like living creatures; ancient things, dragons maybe. My brain is short on oxygen and I let it run wild. Up here I feel like a king surveying my lands; I raise my hands to exaggerate the effect. It is so strange how the chaos that enveloped me just hours ago can feel so different, so removed from the dark mountain; and not just physically but metaphorically. Down there people are toiling around with the trappings of modern life; jobs, families, entertainment, but up here things are primal; just me, a dark mountain and the bike.
As I turn from the city and continue the climb the trees once again envelope me and complete darkness returns. The only lights now are the stars; back to basics, back to the purity of the ride.
Night riding forces a disconnect with the superfluous elements of life even more so than day-time riding. When the only spot of illumination is where your lamp points that is where your focus must always be, a fact I am reminded of as my mind drifts back to the city vista resulting in my tires momentarily sliding out from under me. It is not surprising that when you live in the chaos of the city it is hard to focus the mind on one object. But the challenge is to be cherished; I’ve yet to find another activity that offers such a vivid challenge.
Labels: Night Riding
posted by doeman at
8:24 PM
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