Breaking Out (Part I)

Weak? Yes. Slow? Sure. Happy and privileged to be out and about on two wheels again? Indubitably.

After all, there were no more excuses. No longer sick, no longer in the grips of snow, cold, or other wise foul weather, there was nothing to keep me from my appointed rounds. So I brushed off the old mud splatters from last year as best I could, knocking off big clumps from the brake pads and other confluences, pumped up the tires to the correct pressure, found my helmet, gloves, and other gear, packed my camera, mini-binocs, and other props in the trunk and took off to nowhere special.

Or, in other words, off to some of the usual spots. The important thing was not to find a new or unique route or destination, but to break out of the grip of winter, of physical winter and the winter mindset that comes with it.

Yes, on that first ride out I was doing nothing special; I was up to my old tricks: riding to the same favorite spots (Stone Arch Bridge, Boom Island, etc.) and doing the same old things (looking to see if the early cormorant was back in his perch overlooking St. Anthony Falls; checking out the view of downtown MPLS from Boom Island).

There's no need to describe routes anymore; they've been described quite thoroughly in previous posts on this blog. And, after all, there are a limited number of routes anyway (just various configurations of the same segments): Creek-Lakes-Greenway; Downtown-Uptown-Midtown; River West-Light Rail-Stone Arch-Boom Island; River Gorge East-Secret Bridge; Bluff-side West/Cold Spring-Fort Snelling-Mendota-Snake Trail-I35/Harriet Island-Crosby-Hidden Falls; Bloomington-Wildlife Area- Ft. Snelling State Park East-Mendota; and so on and so forth. Yes, those trail segments have been repeated endlessly by this biker/blogger.

What's different is everything: the day, time, season, weather, wildlife, people, events, wind; the psychology and outlook and feeling of the rider. And the pictures, perhaps.