Thirty miles is approximately nine-thousand bicycle pedal revolutions…on my Bacchetta Giro short-wheel-base recumbent bicycle.
Thirty miles equals two hours of time…and space. The fourth dimension of time and space becomes ever real within the context of a thirty-mile ride. I traverse the same course, over and over and over again, three, four or sometimes five times per week. The rides is in some ways always the same, but always different as well. Stretches of some miles seem to roll along in an instant. The same stretches, on a different day, seem to roll ever so slowly. Time and space intertwine, become one. Miles melt into spaces of thoughts and imaginings, visions of an ever-changing suburban environment and a few river basins of many birds—herons, egrets, ducks, vultures, hawks. Cormorants perch upon the telephone wires that stretch across the span of the Coyote Creek, from autumn to spring, then they fly north to some other place.
Thirty miles is a course to the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean, eight miles from our home, and then circling back inland to Cypress Village…via eight cities. I ride to Seal Beach and stop for a minute or two at the pier to gaze out at the ocean, listen to the sound of seagulls, and watch a few fellow early morning risers—walkers, fellow cyclists, workers and business people, dog-walkers and surfers–who also have come to meld with the sea, the smell of sea air, the freeing sense of being one with this wide watery blue expanse at this southern California coastline.
Thirty miles is approximately eighteen-hundred calories burned…more or less, depending upon the speed and torque applied, as well. I commissioned my body to lose fifty pounds of mass, beginning early this year, and easy it was to do with frequent and consistent thirty-mile burns each week…at least for forty pounds. The final ten pounds seem reluctant to be shed. Too much torque and the pounds stay, albeit as muscle mass rather than fat, but I would like to see them go. This means more spinning and less torqueing. This means when I feel the competitive urge to chase a young rider or two who pass me by on the riverbed trail at twenty-plus miles per hour… that I must let them go, lower my gear, increase my spin, and chase the pounds away instead.
Thirty miles is not a license to eat more food. More calories burned? Yes. It would be easy to convince myself that I need more calories, for it is true, so I do eat more food, with a very aware consciousness of the calories they contain. Yet, in counting calories I am very much aware that I was accustomed to eating too much food before this year, too many breads and starches, too much wine, and too little complex carbohydrates and good, high protein foods. Granola with soy milk in the morning, but only half a cup. A bowl of soup, a Tofurkey Italian sausage in the afternoon. A salad and more soy protein in the evening. A snack of a handful of nuts and raisins. No second plates. Lots and lots of water.
Thirty miles is a transcendence of body and mind. Neurotransmitters—dopamine, endorphines and enkephalins—are released into the synapses of bilions of neuronal connections within my brain. Meanwhile my blood pressure is changing, respiration is altered, blood circulation is increasing as the muscles, tendons, nerves and brain rise in ability and function to meet the demands of a thirty-mile bicycling venture. I am transformed by thirty miles. Energized, yet more relaxed and calm, all at once…as I glide into our village at the end of my ride.
Thirty miles is a meditation, a spiritual renewal, a rite of passage. Each of the approximately nine-thousand pedal strokes is a thought, a memory, a contemplation, an experience. Where does one stroke end and the other begin? A continuum of being, of space and time, body and mind, bicycle and rider, sensate being and environment, past present and future all here and now, it is a singular sensation.
The Bacchetta Giro beckons. It is 6:10 a.m. Time to ride.
Amen.
MH
