Monday, May 16, 2011

Its Only May

Check out what I have been getting up to lately with my friends Matty Miles and also Kaleb and Jim from http://www.tnlphotography.com !



If I told you I handled a year of riding in the past six weeks, would you believe me? I suppose everyone rides on their own schedule and a rider's methods of measuring the ride will vary. But what if you rode almost everyday? And every lap was a balls to the wall, all killer no filler, blast straight to the bottom succeeded by floods of laughter and equal amounts of excitement from all your friends? By those measurements I feel content in my exaggeration. I've been rushing to cram as much as I can into every day and between the rides I've taken and the people I have shared them with, I certainly crammed a years worth of golden moments into April alone.
Surrounded by friends I pedaled into sticky trails while whoops and hollers echoed between the trees. Pedaling faster I chased the sun across picture perfect photo frames. Silhouetted against the shimmering layers of hills I became a black sail in another spectacular sunset. I'd Shred and slash from side to side through silt and loam and mud, dodging branches of leaves who had barely began to bud. Skidding up to my truck I would toss my bike to the tailgate and rally shuttle roads at an uneasy pace. I was in a mad race, squeezing out the final moments of glorious sunlight and laughing about the few sketchy minutes before the forest turned completely black and cold. The fires felt so warm and the beer tasted so cold while the scent of fresh split wood and wide open meadows stained the sleeves on my flannel sweaters. And between fast laps down the trail and slow sips of the bottle I couldn't help but wonder, why am I in such a rush?
I worry about a lot of things, really unnecessary things, and that's probably why I'm always rushing. Will the barely budding leaves have the chance to glow green before they fade to yellow this fall? What if the sun doesn't set so bright for another six or seven nights? And even if it showers tomorrow, will the trail ever be that tacky again? In retrospect it seems ridiculous to me, but in their conceiving moments those worries are valid reasons to trade a good nights sleep for a killer set of photos and some black bags under my eyes. It's only the middle of May and I've already counted over 50 rides, helped out at some races, snapped some photos with Gibby, filmed a few videos and launched a new website on the side of working full time every week. At least the rushing is productive. Maybe I should slow down a bit, drink a few less coffees and stop rushing so much. After all, it's only May.

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