I took my first outdoor ride of the year today. Standing still, 40-degrees seems relatively warm in the winter. Wind chill would decrease that perceived temperature slightly, but I was out of shape and slow. So the wind chill have felt too much colder than the actual temperature. That turned out to be a optimistic oversight on my part. What I forgot to take into account is that wind also blows on its own. With today’s “windy” weather report, the perceived wind chill, when riding into a headwind, ended up feeling roughly the same as temperatures on Neptune. At those speeds and temperatures, winds pierce through all but the strongest armor.
People may ask why I continued to ride my full planned ride. I guess it’s partly because I’d prefer to be found as a frozen roadside corpse, permanently hunched over as if to brave the headwinds of Heaven. At least that way I’d be ripe for bronzing. Yes, some people want their ashes to be scattered on the sea, I want my body to be mounted on a pedestal in city hall.
But their are other reasons. If you read the “Why We Ride” column in Road Bike Action Magazine, or nearly any of the tripe in Bicycling Magazine, it’s no secret that riding is a cathartic, almost transcendental experience. My opinion is that most of these are made by people who were facing obesity and the loss of their feet until they realized that cycling is actually fun and healthy. My reasons are a bit less intense but I do look to it for mental grounding.
In this car culture of ours, it’s very hard to actually get outside. Most people only experience the outdoors in the twenty feet from their front door to their car. In my experience, this is a very easy way to become withdrawn and bitter. Everyone else outside your house becomes a hinderance. Whether they are taking too long to turn at a light or waiting with twenty items in the ten-items-or-less line when you’re just trying to buy milk, most probably wouldn’t mind if everyone else blinked out of existence right there.
I saw an older man jogging. He turned around at an intersection I was approaching. Both of us were on the return legs of our routes. He was bundled from head-to-toe in some sort of brightly colored wool or polyester. I was bundled from head-to-toe in some sort of brightly colored spandex and polyester. No doubt he was nearly as cold as I was. He made no indication that he saw me, but we shared something. Everyone would prefer to be warm and comfortable, but it’s not that simple for the old man or me. If we could stay indoors all day–getting fat and cursing humanity for having the nerve to run errands when we need to–and be happy about it, we would. But going out today reopened the world to me. I saw a mother and daughter bringing in the groceries. I saw a hawk holding his own on a power line against the high winds. I saw cars wait behind me and, when clear, shift entirely over into oncoming traffic to give me more than wide enough berth when they pass. It’s these moments that remind me that not everyone wants me off the road or dead. Because we’re all just trying to get through life. We’re all in this together
