Velocipede Verses #10: Your 2016 on Strava

You spent hours and days chasing your goals that year

Pushing on and on

For miles and altitude

2016

The year just past the year

You returned from the wild blue yonder for good

After decades numbering three

Your identity

Can get wrapped in what you do

When you soar like a bird,

An eagle

A sword and shield for the nation you love

Leading for a living all day, every day, and many days at night

Prepared to fight

Twenty-four-seven-three-sixty-five

Alive

With the buzz of never turning off

Always needed

Your blood Service blue

And red and white, too

Then the Republic for which you stand

Says thank you, your service to your Service and your country is no longer required

Retired

In a way, anyway, with still many a day to live from here on forward

Beware

That there

Is now a hole

A gap

A chasm

A yawning crevasse

Where there used to be the Constitution

You solemnly swore

To support and defend

To the ends

Of the earth and sky, against all foes

Even those

Who were not foreign, but domestic

Your bag and boots and helmet remain in the closet

Because it

Is not now for you to serve those ends

A new job can occupy eight hours, five days a week

That’s bleak

Only 2080 of 8760 and change

How strange

It would seem to have so much free time

So you set a plan in motion

A goal, if you will

To climb a hill, some hills every day, many days

To ride lots of miles, 5K in fact

To chase digi-badges on a web-based app

That tracks miles gone, minutes your butt’s in saddle, thousands of feet you climb

The time

Adds up over days and weeks and months of the year

In Jan you’re the man

You’ve started your plan

Climbing the meters and riding the miles

The badge appears, your first of the year

One-twelfth of the way to your aim

The game

Is afoot and the past is behind

Kind of, anyway

Though as Robin Williams once said

Cycling is the closest you can get to flying

And you’re buying

That philosophy in month two and month three

Of the year just past the year

The wild blue was no longer for you

According to your Uncle Sam

In April and May and June

You ride and you climb

A lot of your time

One-hundred-and-five-and-a-half of the hours

While showers

Bring the flowers and the tomatoes start to blossom, too

While you

Hit the saddle every morning, every evening, and sometimes at lunch as well

In Jul and Aug

You’re an absolute hog

Eating the miles day after day

Grunting through ascents over and over and over

Repeatedly

And then over again

And when

The biggest star

Makes its way toward the maiden of wheat

The heat

Doesn’t stop you from progress

Down valleys, up vales, the hills and the dales

You ride and you ride

And bide

Some of the time that used to be used to serve the call of duty

In the month of the Jack-O-Lantern

You ride in the cold

Name one outing

Frozen Finger Glory

Aka

Miracle in Bear Creek Canyon

Because though breezy and frigid

It’s spectacular

And your iced hands were among other hands

Who helped pave the way for paving the way

Along the path of your beloved trail

All hail

Accessibility to outdoors

For riders and walkers and those who require assistance

You break out the fat bike in November

Remember

And recall days with less gust, less chill, less cold, biting rain

The pain

Is sometimes good fodder to fill the mind

The grind

Of spinning the wheels round and round is also good therapy

And burns calories

That need to disappear this time of year when the gobbler is good and the taters and gravy and berries and rolls with butter fill the plate and you express gratitude for a loving family and friends and health and happiness

Then your world suddenly fills with snow

And Jack

Is back

With his frost, and the biggest star hardly plays for most of the days

In December

And it rains in the cold

Man, it gets old

And there’s ice on the road and it eats at your soul

Your goal

5K

In miles

And all the badges to climb

The time

You put into an entire year of riding and occupying the saddle and your mind

Churns

And your heart burns

As you sit with your nose pressed to the pane

Watching rain

Turn to ice not safe to walk on, drive on, ride on, you want to cry

Oh why?

Then your bride buys a gift, studs on tires that arrive

December 25

And you smile as you go to the garage to put them on your fat bike

After cooking orange rolls for breakfast

The annual tradition

And wishing

All the rest of the kids and even Mom and Dad

Could be home to open gifts with you and you weren’t an orphan

Which all comes to mind

When you find

The tires don’t fit, they rub on the sides

Too fat for a frame that’s pretty fat

But not fat enough

This stuff

Is the stuff of nightmares on your street name

What a shame

As you cipher and lament

How far and high you went

In 2016

The year just past the year

That you

Came home from the wild blue

For better

Or worse

And for good

Then fell short of your goal by 13.9 miles and some number of feet

Bittersweet

But there’s always next year

And the year after that

And some years in the decades numbering three ahead of you

To see

If you can soar like a bird

On a bike up the hills, on the roads, on the trails

Down the valleys

Up the vales

You can get wrapped in what you do

And still do it for a very good long time

Yet to come

You spent hours and days chasing your goals that year

Pushing on and on

For miles and altitude

It weren't for naught