Come inside, the show’s about to start
Guaranteed to blow your head apart
Rest assured you’ll get your money’s worth
Greatest show in Heaven, Hell or Earth
You’ve got to see the show, it’s a dynamo
You’ve got to see the show, it’s rock and roll, oh (ELP/Emerson Lake & Palmer)

It really is a show that never ends. Been doing the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride since… sometime in the 1980s. Originally it was just up Kings & return, then added 84 to Sky Londa and back, and finally, around 1990, started riding with Kevin Keenan and added the West Old LaHonda loop, shown here. It wasn’t really a worthy ride until the current version, which, from home, is just over 30 miles and 3400ft of climbing. The reason the initial version was so short was because the bike shop originally opened at 10am, and leaving the house at 7:30 to start the ride is about as early as I can get motivated to do. And yes, changing the shop’s hours to 11am was largely to accommodate my cycling. 11am gives me enough time to get in a good ride, get home, shower, eat, and get to work at 10:30am to start setting things up for the day.

Back in the day, when the Tuesday/Thursday morning ride was known to be relatively fast, we’d leave from Olive Hill & Canada at 7:45 and arrive back between 9:18 and 9:22. Fastest-ever ride I think has us returning at 9:16 (but I have a dim memory of maybe seeing 9:14 once?). Today, if the stars line up and it’s a “fast” (by current standards) ride, we might get back at 9:30. Today, on my own, it was 9:32 but I get a little cred because it was the Thursday version which takes the tougher route up through Huddart Park.

So the question has come up, how long before I slow down enough that I can’t make it back in time for work? Two things going on there. First, at some point I’m not going to keep working as many hours as I do now. I’ll be 70 next March and there are some strong rationalizations for cutting back. First, my body isn’t working like it used to. Arthritis in the right hand and yeah, that really affects using tools! It’s a literal pain, and anything that requires a “feel” is a fail. Because the main thing I “feel” is a bit of pain with little effort, more pain with greater effort. I’m not used to judging how tight something should be using “pain” as a reference. Nor do I want to. And yes, for anything that needs a torque wrench, I use a torque wrench.

Second, I’d like to spend more time with my wife. Time that is limited by her Stage IV cancer. She’s not going anywhere anytime soon; so far, Keytruda (an expensive immunology drug) is doing wonders for her. But the chemo that goes with it does a real number of her red blood cells so she runs out of gas a lot more easily than she used to.

Third, a ton of projects around the house! Presently, if I wanted to get to them, I’d need to cut back on the amount of riding I do, and my preference would be to ride more, not less. But working six days a week doesn’t leave much time for much else.

And fourth, as mentioned in the paragraph above, I’d really like to ride more. For that matter, travel more too. It would be dangerous to spend more time in France though; at some point, I’d probably just not come back. That assumes I dragged my wife over there with me. And yes, sometimes I think, if she didn’t need such high tech and constant care, maybe I/we would just pack up and leave for the south of France. I know people who have done that and what they post on Facebook is almost torture for me to see. The wonderful places to ride, the amazing food, and away from the politics here in the US.

But for now, I’m successfully putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.