I thought you were dead

I get that a lot.

For those in the know, or not in the know, I’m all about the ride as metaphor. I’m all about taking more seriously than most the five minute commute. I’m seeing meaning where most are seeing traffic. I don’t particularly know if this is valuable, but it is what it is. I could just have ADHD.

Though, wouldn’t you? If each day you had to stop at some annoying stop and slow sign, only to realise that they make you stop at some incredibly beautiful place to stare at the moment of the full moon peeping out of the clouds? The evening was stunning and crisp and light and worthy of a light detour spin on my ownsome. Not far, just far enough to feel that I rode somewhere, then rode somewhere back.

So buoyed by my evening ride, I decided to have a little more ride as metaphor. Well, maybe bike as metaphor.

It’s funny, I’ve been thinking/talking/feeling a lot about love lately. It’s just one of those things. It’s poetry show related, life related, world related. Just click here for a little light listening music, eh? If It Hadn’t Been For Love. Then settle in. Open in another tab, then have a cuppa.

So, bike as metaphor.

In the bike as metaphor land, which is totally a simple land, with bright colours and action movies – you realise that it’s do-over Monday and you realise that you fall short, and that there is no cure for falling short but to jump higher next time. Beating yourself up doesn’t even allow you to jump a little bit. You know you’ve got some repairing to do, but that’s going to take time, jumping this next hurdle – well that’s just coming up, isn’t it? If you dwell on the loss, well, you’re lost then too. And you can repair slowly, because some broken things take time to heal.

But I digress.

What I mean is that I’m trying to take better care of my bike and recognise that perhaps because I love my bike so much, I over use it and don’t actually care for it. And one day it’s totally going to break and I’m not going to know what’s hit me. And maybe I don’t really understand my bike, I’m just a bit selfish and want only to enjoy my bike, not actually care and give back to my bike.

Poor bike.

So let’s start simple. Grips.

I’ve not recently had pause to consider grips but really, my grips are ratty. I had originally considered something to match my saddle which, after two years of good love is getting well worn in. But you also can’t control love and sometimes you should really accept positivity where it is given. So I’m going to try out hot pink grips.

After the purple chain, can it really get any better than this? (excuse the colour icky, it’s dark in my lounge room)

And I got part way there.

In the course of totally not being able to get the other grip off to replace it, I managed to laugh, wrestle with my bike, watch Alien Resurrection, cook amazing food and connect with two wonderful people for advice and support.

And I realised that my approach to bike maintenance is a bit like my approach to love – I may not know how to do everything myself, but I can find people to help. I’m no font of knowledge, but I’m a connector and a people person and good at bringing nice things together. And, in the end, I love the act of being friendly and funny and silly with those people and – if the movie hadn’t had another twenty minutes to run, I’d have probably just waited til tomorrow morning and asked Andrew to help me out! Or run the poor thing with one pink grip.

Though sometimes, I totally just arse it up. And it doesn’t come together at all.

Sadly, I’ve rounded – or someone else has – out the little allen key notches on one side. Either that, or the same allen key works only on one side and not the other. I don’t care. It’s bike love gremlins.

It won’t rival the Hemingway collection, but it was fun while it lasted.

Now, tomorrow, I’m finally going to overcome a serious phobia, requesting for help from a bike store. I didn’t even want to buy my bike from a bike store. I’m almost as bad with bike stores as ball sports. But that’s pretty much the dumbest thing anyone ever thought. Potentially about as good as my previously held theories on love.

So, tomorrow – barring an inevitable Brisbane shower, I’ll drop my bike off at Epic, in the hope that someone will change over the grips. They come recommended, and I love a good recommendation.

And eventually, you realise, you can’t do everything on your own.

Defrosting hamburgers quick smart pronto for instance.

That is a team sport.

—

PS I’m training for the Gold Coast (10km) Marathon (internal marathon, okay team?) and, boy, have I had some great coaches for events in the past. Over the years, you may think types like Casey, Ronald, XBrendanX, Nik Cee and Blakey. But my running coach is the current shizzle.

For today, I had to watch this. Smashed it. I may not finish the run in the allocated hour and a half, but I’ll have had a helluva a laugh in the mean time.