The Commute



 I once heard a professor say that, often, the best part of his day was his bike ride in - a hint of promise, sometimes clear thoughts - and that the pedaling set up a slow cadence that was to be the rhythm of the day.  A close second, he said, would be his ride home, unwinding after the day's tumult or successes, however big or small.  This professor lost his grant, so perhaps he doted on the ride a wee bit too much.  These rides can bookend that portion of the day where, hopefully, our imagination can fuel us, and change the course ever-so-slightly for the better.  Let us be prolific in our work projects, and our home projects as well.  I have been thinking lately about how each can influence the other in positive ways.

 




The commuter has to rise a little earlier, perhaps prepare a little more the night before, remembering keys, lunch, water bottle, an extra layer, that snack for the ride home, light and extra batteries in the Fall-Winter-Spring.  There are perennial items such as flat repair kit, tire levers, and legging ties. 

 Most revolutionaries, I believe, ride either motorcycles or bicycles, perhaps both, and drink matté – the real stuff, not the tea bag or premix – so also include mug, bombilla and bulk matté, if you are the type.

  

Tasted some Russian olives next to the pond





Off trail behind Lee Martinez



I aspire to be such a rider, battened down for the winter, ready to jump in the river with the river gypsies in the summer.  This year, after riding the trail and the streets for some twelve years now, I seem to be noting things for the first time.  Where the blue grama is more plentiful, most likely place to find a fawn, how much earlier to head out to smell New Belgium's wort just West of College, where the blue darner are most likely to cruise for gnats along the Poudre.  My rides have become more exploratory, and more on the the ride home, once a week, I like to cut down a new street.  The new scenery sometimes does me good.  I take inspiration in what some are doing to their front yards.  I like to see people out on their porch, playing their guitars, reading, drinking, talking, listening, observing.  Once I saw a guy decked out in kilt, tank, and tattoo sleeves, cranking on his amped guitar with a friend.  "Danny!" he hailed, fist pumping, then went back to playing.  To this day I have no idea who that guy was.  I am often too shy to approach people who apparently know me. 



At the bridge behind Lee Martinez farm

     I like to take a newer bike that a friend recently slapped together.  He salvaged a 70s era Gitano frame from the dumpster, made leather handlebars and seat, multicolored chain, and added the ever-handy rack.  I had him change it from single to three-speed for the climbs.  It is indeed a slower ride than my mountain bike, and perhaps that is why I've noticed things a little better lately.

My commute sometimes takes me down North College, past new lamps that I imagine will be illumined in the early morning, past the shops that I've ridden past hundreds of times without ever going in.  They are mere scenery.  New ones have emerged, though, that have caught my eye, like the recycled furniture shop just before the Human Bean.  More often than not I cruise down Hickory, past La Familia and left onto the Salyer trail, where the meadows lead up to the Poudre River at Legacy.  I come out of the woods behind Lee Martinez.  There is frost on the quackgrass, sideoats grama, and bromegrass that fill these meadows.  I canter away from the holy river towards the new museum and then up to the streets, around Daz Bog and over to Howes for the slow stop-and-go of traffic signals all the way to campus.  I favor this route now over the homed one along Remington, at least for the commute in, as I get to see others who have started the day before me.  The commerce of the day gets rolling for me.



Behind the new Discovery Museum

Occasionally I grab a coffee at the Mugs window at Laurel.  If there's time, a little reading at the benches before the home stretch through the oval and onward.  I would like to get to the point where I can hang at the coffee shop for at least half an hour before the work day begins.  There have been times where I've done this on a certain day each week, getting up an hour earlier than usual, more often in the summer.  On those days, more than others, it seems to get everything flowing, and gives something to come back to on the return home.  Somehow the thoughts of what I'm reading get blended with my rides, as though there is a certain silence or solitude meted out on the trail, enabling me to pick up threads of thoughts where I'd left them last time.  Some are loftier than others, but they commute with me just the same.  I will continue this, hopefully into Fall-Winter this year, and I will make sojourns to places I've yet visited.