UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Today's Ride:

26.4 miles

Bryce-Pima Loop

1 hour 31 minutes

69° F., clear, calm

Wednesday's Ride:

27.8 miles

San Jose out & back

1 hour 39 minutes

68° F., clear

I knew it would happen some day. Frankly, I'm surprised it has taken until this week.

I was riding eastward through the small village of Solomon located about 10 miles east of Thatcher. Solomon, sometimes called Solomonville, is a friendly village with several unfriendly dogs. But there are also a few dogs that enjoy chasing a cyclist just for the sport of it. They do not have evil intentions.

One such dog, a small white pooch of unknowable breed, spied me approaching on my red bike. I could see its eyes focused on me with anticipation as I rode into its territory on the road in front of its owner's house.

I could also see that the look in its eyes said, "I'm going to chase you and I'm going to bark at you but I am not going to bite your leg. I'm not that kind of dog."

It came after me with laser-like concentration knowing that this just might be the highlight of its day.

What the dog didn't see was the large white pickup truck coming in our direction in the other lane.

The truck ran over the dog.

I don't know what the final outcome was for the dog. It yelped loudly and struggled to stand up but then seemed to regain strength and took off running back to its house.

By the time I rode back to the accident site, I could no longer see or hear it.

If there is a lesson to be learned from this incident I suppose it might be that our actions often have unintended consequences. The temptation to chase was just too much for the dog to withstand. But it did not take into consideration all of the circumstances and outcomes of its decision. The dog was blindsided.

It's an experience to remember when we are excited (or tempted) to pursue a particular course of action.

Look before we chase.

Happy riding.

A Salute to the Draft

Today's Ride:

26.2 miles

Bryce-Pima loop

1 hour 31 minutes

65 perfect degrees

Flag Day 2010. Patriotism. Need to defend the country. Register for the draft. Yes, I'll write about drafting today.

Drafting is when rider B follows so closely behind rider A that rider B is able to exert far less energy because rider A is breaking wind... that is, breaking THE wind.

NASCAR drivers know all about drafting. So do serious cyclists. And geese.

If you have even casually followed the Tour de France you have likely heard the term "peloton." It means the main field or group of cyclists in a bike race. Through long road races, as opposed to shorter sprints or time trials, cyclists like to stay grouped together in the peloton. There is efficiency in the group because of the ability to draft off riders in the front. At some point in the race, two or three or a small handful of riders may attempt a "breakaway" and try to put some distance between themselves and the main peloton.

Often the peloton is able to overtake the breakaway before the end of the race because of the greater efficiency of riding in a large group. There is energy in numbers.

Geese use the same concept when flying a "V" formation. The lead goose does most of the work with the trailing geese drafting just off a wing of the goose in front.

Studies show the lead rider in a group expends up to 30 percent more energy than riders in a drafting position. That's significant.

That's why a basic rule of riding in a group -- even a group of two -- is to trade off the lead position. Geese do that. So do cyclists, most of the time.

I often ride with a friend, Russ, who is a stronger rider than me. I'm tempted to draft behind him for much of the ride, thereby equalizing our abilities (or neutralizing his strength, depending on how you want to look at it). But my conscience usually gets the best of me and I try to take my turns in the lead position.

Like so many other areas of our lives, working together in groups often produces better results than a solo effort.

Let's hear it for the draft.

Keep on riding.

Life's Little Landmarks

Today's Ride:
27.4 miles
Bryce – out and back
1 hour 40 minutes
Clear, 70° F.



Reay Lane runs roughly north and south through the Gila Valley and is part of a route I frequently ride, as I did this morning. When I say "runs roughly," I mean both ways: approximately and not smoothly.

Until this week.

County crews have just finished resurfacing about two miles of Reay Lane on the south side of Thatcher. It's now a strip of asphalt: smooth, clean, and quiet as electrical tape.

It's a pleasure to ride on.

But I miss something about the old, pockmarked, pothole-repaired and rough surface. I miss the landmarks or, in this case, the roadmarks.

You see, after a few dozen rides, a cyclist gets to know a stretch of road quite well. He notices and remembers unique designs etched on the road by the thermal cracking of its surface. There are pothole repairs, some done well producing nary a bump when ridden over and others that have either disintegrated with time or were not done well to begin with. There's the occasional survey paint, man-hole cover, broken center line reflectors, graffiti and the ever-present tar-filled fissures.

All of these surface features form a sort of road map that comprise the clues informing the cyclist exactly where she is on the road; how far to the top of the hill; how much more time before reaching the next intersection. They define a road, give it character.

And now, for this new stretch of Reay Lane, that character has been paved over with a uniformly smooth and featureless ribbon of asphalt. I've lost my bearings.

I was thinking today while riding that life is a bit like the rough version of Reay Lane. We all have our cracks and fissures, our covered over potholes, the imperfections of life that we try to smooth over with time, experience and repentance. Our personal roads are mostly very much rideable and usually pleasantly so.

But the marks in our life's road provide the context and dimension that give us the bearings and cues we need to continue to move forward toward our destination. We know just when and how much to swerve to miss a crack or crevice because we recognize the features of our life's highway.

We want smooth travels but we don't want to cover our past and take away our personal landmarks that keep us going in the right direction and at the right pace.

Happy trails.

Back on the Blog

Recent Rides

19 rides since last blog

569.4 miles

29.96 miles per ride average

Some riding since last blog entry (March 6), but no writing. Not a good trend.

I am hopeful of increasing my riding and writing frequency.

The highlight of the last 19 rides came on April 10 when a friend and I rode in the Tour de Phoenix -- a 73 mile race on a loop course going through Mesa, Tempe and Scottsdale then back to Mesa. It was a weather perfect day with the desert clothed in her spring best. Beautiful.

And the riding was also good although there was one long ascent toward the end of the race (when it was warmest) that took a lot out of me. My friend, Russ Reynolds, and I finished together in about 4 hours and 15 minutes.

There are a lot of reasons -- or excuses -- for why I haven't been writing much but, in retrospect, none of them is really very valid. It just wasn't a priority, at least the writing half of the equation. I at least got the 19 rides (including this morning's ride) done.

My bike's odometer passed the 15,000 mile mark on today's ride. That may seem like a lot of miles on a bicycle and I guess it is. In the interest of full disclosure, however, I must add that those 15,000 miles have been ridden over the course of 10 years. That's only about 1,500 miles per year if averaged out -- not all that impressive, actually.

I think last year's total was the largest single year total at just over 2,800 miles. I've had years with fewer than 1,000 miles so my commitment to the saddle varies widely over time.

I am off to a good start this year with almost 1,000 miles accumulated so far with my most productive riding months still ahead of me.

Happy riding.