This isn’t Stipps Hill Road, but it’s not far off. We ride Vanetta Hollow and Sanes Creek, tracing a familiar route having hills that test our legs and our will. Along the way we pass roads with names made familiar during our years of covering Fayette and Franklin counties. There’s Elm Tree, Quarry, and Johnson [...]
Archive for the ‘road bike’ Category
Murder on a nearby road
Posted in road bike, tagged bicycle, bike, Cycling, Indiana, Murder on October 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
A knee to the gut
Posted in road bike, Running, tagged bicycle, Cycling, Indiana, Marathon, road bike, running on October 2, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The postcard lies on a counter in my office. Purchased as inspiration, it’s now a reminder of something lost. I didn’t run the Wabash Heritage Trail Marathon today. Pain and instability in my left knee — proof that no good deed goes unpunished — made running that distance impractical. Then again, for the past several [...]
There
Posted in road bike on August 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
I don’t think it’s there. Where the cartoon-character drinking glasses rub shoulders with collector-edition Barbies. Nor under bright lights, on a wall with other six-figure landscape paintings by masters of regional Impressionism. And I don’t think it’s here. On some country road framed by weather-worried barns and new silos gleaming like mirrors in the sun. [...]
Outside looking in
Posted in road bike on August 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
My eyes track not the road, but a tree line to the east. Going out. Coming back. I affix my thoughts on that wall of sycamores and maples and poplars. I put myself there again. Two days ago I stepped off a bridge above the Big Blue River, landing knee-deep in water that, despite the [...]
The real country
Posted in road bike on July 26, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
We ride down the middle of summer, on a stretch of chip-and-seal a lane and a half wide, with corn planted so close to the ditch I can almost touch it with an outstretched hand. I’m far removed from where I grew up, but these are the roads of my childhood. I could never live [...]
Purpose
Posted in road bike on July 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Her question is rhetorical. “What’s the purpose?” Liz asks. She speaks out of frustration, like a tightly covered pot brought to a boil, able to contain an ireful energy for only so long before the laws of physics take over. Then the words tumble over the edge and spill before me. I know certain stresses [...]
No more excuses
Posted in road bike on July 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
This remains. Settling into a more comfortable pace, I can see the woods again — an interdependent organism in a constant state of change. Deep under the cover of maples and hickories, the forest floor slowly chokes in colors of ailing yellow and burial brown. It’s here, in what little coolness that Westwood can offer [...]
Of songs and swallows
Posted in road bike on June 30, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
On this most perfect of summer days… On a day I stood in absolute wonder as dozens of swallows circled over a creek… On a day spent scrutinizing the colors of wildflowers playing a game of freeze tag alongside a woods… Can there still be hope? The question comes hours after the ride, darkness of [...]
Summer solstice 2011
Posted in road bike on June 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Sometimes it doesn’t come. Not here. Not now. From the start, it’s like breathing through a warm, wet cloth. Heat and humidity cover my mouth, my face, my body. Wind pushes against me like an accomplice. Nothing feels good. The miles are empty. Even the country roads I follow today, a course that pushes me [...]
Of snowdrifts and rooster tails
Posted in road bike, tagged bicycle, Cycling, Indiana on February 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
It’s not spring. Far from it. But for a day we ride as if a season has turned. In fact, we are somewhere between seasons — between the trainer and the road. Finding ourselves on dry pavement and in snow melt, throwing grit into our gears and rooster tails onto our backs. Keeping wheels on [...]
