Tours Away
Tomorrow morning the Wheeled Migration takes flight. “Students, educators, innovators, activists, organizers, and entrepreneurs of the environmental justice and green economy movements” will be spend ten days riding South from Chico and other parts of the state toward San Luis Obispo and the UC/CSU/CCC Sustainability Conference.
Many of my friends are going on this tour and I wish them the best of luck. However it plays out I am sure it’ll be a great experience. All the preparation I’ve seen so far makes me hunger for my own inevitable bike touring.
At this moment, I like the idea of lightly-loaded short tours, some akin to Randonneuring. I want to ride light and fast, I want to carry the bare minimum and realize that I need even less, I want for something like this.
It’s going to be a while before I’m riding again, and even longer still until I’m riding as fast or as strong as I was. I’m imagining myself as starting from a completely blank slate, though I know this isn’t completely true. It will be through daily indoctrination that my legs return to appropriate levels of muscle tension; riding to and from work, riding in spare hours of sunlight, riding entire Sundays.
Eventually the miles will add up to something. Until then, I’ll watch my friends ride and share in the revelry that I can.