The day always comes when there are roadblocks thrown up to seemingly thwart my efforts to ride. Sometimes it's emotional, as in "I don't feel like it", sometimes it's physical: "I'm really too tired" and sometimes it's just plain nonsense that will take some time to sort out. Today I am looking at the nonsense of needing to get my back wheel re-aligned after hitting whatever it was in the road last night. A "non-visual" diagnostic by my friend, Dennis, suggests that the spokes on the back wheel have become mis-aligned due to the impact of the encounter. Well, I guess it just means I'm going to have to ride the Cannondale now. As in really commit to the feel of it. I'm still not accustomed to the feel of every little bump in the road shooting up through the bike frame and into my body. I imagine after some time I will get used to it.
I spoke at length last night in my post about the visual and physical pleasures of riding alone at night in the Presidio and around town. The encounter with whatever I hit last night is a good reminder to always have as many tools and equipment handy as one can have to fix problems on the ride. Thankfully I have only had 1 flat tire in all the 2770 miles I have so far ridden this past year and that flat was a painful 2 mile walking reminder to carry tubes, patches and a pump.
The sliver of moon over the south tower of the Golden Gate and I were alone in that whole world, watching each other from afar and appreciating the balance that exists between the heavens and earth and how, no matter the miles between I am touched by the light of it, even when it is nearly gone. Periodic looking toward the west as I came and went in and out of view of the coast I could see the progression as that moon disappeared finally for what we mortals call "another night". It was just so real and so very personal, as if I was the only one who could see it.
It's funny, too, how the gulls flying overhead, with their often white underbellies sort of glow against the starlit night sky as they sail on the winds from the west. The coastal trails beckoning me to join them in their efforts to make it to the sea. As a cyclist it is certainly not practical to descend those often treacherous trails, especially at night, on the bike, and I imagine that a leisurely, well-footed stroll on their dark approach to the shores would have its own delicious rewards. The breezes blowing up off the ocean, the slight rustle of the coastal grasses long since dried up after the end of spring rains; all this coming together to make for a remarkable climb down to the waves. Except for the bike. Pity, but I know what I can and cannot do so I act accordingly.
As I approach the Presidio from the Coastal Bike Trail onto the main road going under the Golden gate Bridge, there is a bus stop(Muni) where there are always a small handful of folks waiting to be escorted home(?) from a long day's work(?) and inevitably they are so often older Chinese. I roll past and notice their often mismatched and ill-fitted(?) colorful garments and listen to their foreign(to me) dialogue and wonder about their reason for being at that lonely Muni outpost at that time of night and if they are going home or to another job. My time with them is so brief and the hundreds of questions that arise will forever go unanswered because I will not stop to ask, will not learn Mandarin or Cantonese in order to ask and am much happier with never really knowing. Some nights the fog rolls in and offers a more ghostly perspective as it bathes them in a more pronounced golden light from the shelter fixture.
When I roll into Crissy Field from the Marina, traffic is lessened, the lights go down and with the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge on my left bathing me in its ambient golden streetlight glow, I can hear the silence around me. I can see well the road in front of me, the trees sparsely populating the Bay (near)shores on my right and a few here and there peppering the open spaces under the overpass rising to meet that great Golden Monument to take folks where they need to go. The Bay on my right gently slaps the shores with its entirely too cold water that has circulated from out beyond the Golden Gate in front of me, arriving from China or Japan and all points east to wash up on those shores. I love to ride through this area at night because the locals have all gone home, the tourists are sitting down somewhere for the night recounting their time walking the beaches of Crissy Field with the Golden Gate in view and I pretty much have the place to myself. But I am just passing through. It is a gateway of pleasure for me to ride over and into the arms of the Presidio where I will rise up and above the lights of San Francisco and become a coastal dweller for a time. My bicycle hugging the pavement as I push my body forward, propelled toward the mileage goal for the night(I am a Mileage WHORE) but never forgetting to take in the most beautiful vistas and scenes around me as I count down the centimeters, inches, feet, yards, blocks and miles to my betterment.
I have long since put the childhood fears of the dark behind me and can relish the silent City that I inhabit; in the darkness of trees and periodic streetlamps suggesting humanity's presence but neither confirming nor denying it. Other monuments of human habitation arise as I coast by trash and compost bins set out to be picked up per a weekly schedule, green and blue bins that are universal in San Francisco and remind me that we create too much waste yet work very hard to minimize the impact. surrounded I am by all things human, and yet, in the darkness of the Presidio on the West Coast of San Francisco, of California, of these United States, I am alone and cradled in the generosity of nature giving as she always has the kinds of beauty that must be seen and heard with some awareness and intent lest they slip by and I cannot recall them to write down.
No comments:
Post a Comment