Last week, I strapped my bike to the top of the car, packed a bag of riding clothes, and drove to work. Most of my colleagues have grown used to my odd fascination with the two wheeled machine, but that day, they offered comments, usually with an eye canted toward the sky. The temperature was forecast to tip the lower forties, and the weathermen were giddy with the possibility of flurries.
You going out?” one co-worker asked.
I nodded.
Lunch time ride,” I said.
She looked dubious, but said nothing more.
I made it to the trails before noon, anxious to squeeze in a forty-five minute trek.
The wind blew across the lake, dropping the temperature even more as I zoomed down the hill, squeezed through the fence gate, and pedaled the singletrack to the main trail. Brown leaves, already past their glorious Technicolor offerings, buried most of the paths. At one turn, my tires slid out from underneath me, and I only caught myself with a quick dab— a foot dropped down to maintain balance.
Most of the ride felt the same. Familiar obstacles stopped me, whether I was riding a line through a rock garden (didn’t make it), balancing along the skinny bridges (completed one out of five attempts), or launching my bike and body over the mongo log (the crash wasn’t too bad, thank you for asking).
Thirty minutes into the ride, though, as I was laughing at my inability to ride anything without falling over or coming to a dead, unexpected stop, the first flake drifted down. Moments later, others lazily followed.
I stopped in the middle of the trail, watching the ephemeral flurries flickering past the browned leaves and bare branches, spiraling down into the little ravine where I was standing. I had entered a Japanese print painted in sepia and white.
That moment reminded me of other vignettes, other places that my feet have taken me: sunlight glittering through ice-encased branches on the top of Old Rag Mountain, wild ponies snuffling around my campsite in Sand Bridge on a bike camping trip, summer sunlight warming the rocks at a state park in West Virginia, my daughters’ small hands clasping mine.
The flurries slowed, then stopped. I rode a little more carefully, made it back to the car, and drove to work, arriving one minute before the lunch break ended.
Good ride?” the co-worker asked.
Beautiful,” I replied.
Robin Follet lives, writes, and cartoons in North Carolina.
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