Last night I rode my bike into the wind, one way. Usually, when I ride, it’s into the wind on the way out so when I’m tired, on the way back, there’s a lovely boost. But last night, I rode a long ways, uphill, into the wind. I’d be getting a ride back later. So this was just all hard for the fun of it being hard. No promise of a boost. No easy later to balance out the hard now. I planned it this way.

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I have been thinking a lot about Renoir working on his boating party painting, how he says he has to do this painting, which is a little bit harder than what he is able to pull off. The project will require of him skills he doesn’t have mastery of and he knows this! What strikes me most is how aware he is of what he can do, what can be done, and where he is, technically.

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Last night, it was in the mid-eighties. In Michigan, in May, this is a heat wave of record-breaking proportions.  People stay inside. They go down into their basements! I rolled out grinning. I rode slow. I imagined the air coming up from Mexico. It’s hot, wet, soft, sweet air. Thick. I pedaled evenly and I said this moment, this moment, over and over. I went slow into the wind, my body like a sail—not helpful!—but I had such a beautiful evening on my bicycle.

I saw frogs. I saw turtles and turkeys. Bluebirds, goldfinches, maybe a yellow flicker. I heard owls communicating. I think they were saying are you watching the egg? I’m watching the egg! Are you on it? I’m on it!  I saw the astonishing reflection of the rhododendrons in the river. Two men from Turner fishing in the slough in the late light, another painting to love forever. I saw the hills covered with purple and white phlox. And then a hummingbird came to my cheek. It turns out hummingbirds are scary, beady-eyed little micro buzzards up close, but still, it was very very cool to see one. I walked my bike up the sand road past the blueberry fields.

Not an easy ride. But it was the best ride in a long time. And this post is all about the writing life, not about the bike. It’s about writing. It’s about the plot point.

 I road fifty not one hundred but this is the thing about the bikes. Distance happens to you—it’s not really the thing you are after.  One hundred miles, fifty miles, it doesn’t matter. For me the Holland Hundred was a perfect ride this year. I was, literally, in a way any of us rarely ever is, along for the ride.

I had no distance in mind, no goal. I didn’t even look at a map or think about the ride the night before. In the morning, I got on my bike, and rode down my street, and out Sixteenth, and that’s how I pedaled out of town.

It’s not that easy.

You get on your bike and it’s chilly in the morning and the first couple of miles are fine because there’s lots of chatting and adjusting and for me, a good deal of energy spent trying to memorize the clothes/bike/helmet of the people I’m riding with, so I have a better chance of finding them again, since I have no face recognition skill, zero.

Then, after the chatty rush, it’s a work-out—it’s hard going up the hill, and it takes work to avoid the potholes on Lincoln. Then, a red truck swerves at us, cursing, “Get off the road!” and then a kid on a moped shoots a bird, “Get on the sidewalk.” A kid on a moped! Have to navigate through all this bad energy, car-smog, and not get caught in it. People-potholes. No problem.  Just requires some energy, a little paying-attention.

I rode the half-Hundred with Randall Z and he’s a good, good rider—knows how to keep a line, never joneses to go faster than I can go; he holds a steady pace with his bike and his conversation. So I can sit back. And enjoy the ride.

It’s always after about fifteen miles, maybe a little more, that the ride opens up. It’s just like church for me, or a date, or any old day—I drag my butt down there, flustered or cranky or whatever. I show up. I work, and duck badness, and work and wonder why am I doing this?

And then the day opens up. We were riding past the cornfields out East of Hamilton (or somewhere, I really never know actually where I am in Michigan because of THE GRID) on a flat wide stretch of road. There were super heavy folks on small bikes and a kid on a trike.  Sleek cats sped by on super-machines, little Bruce Springsteen songs flashing by. There were couples on tandems with grumpy looking women in the back position. And me and R, steady at 17, cross wind, the sound of the corn like a prayer hush hush hush. Cotton and dark clouds, like ideas the world needs more of, packing the sky. And the day opens up. And the road does the work. There’s no struggle, nothing to be against, nothing to duck. Nothing to fear or pray for. This is the moment of perfection. And then the rest of the ride is informed by that blessing and I can’t understand why I ever walk around on land on feet.

This is what is meant by the phrase: live to ride.

The Holland Hundred. It was a perfect ride.