Repetition and familiarity. Once what was exotic is now common place just like a local. Local is a term that defines, well, a person who lives in immediate locale. Used for us wanderers to perhaps establish credibility of their knowledge. I am not a local but I have stayed in places for enough time to figure out where I go to meet my needs. Long enough for like scenery to be just another day of same ol beauty. At present I am in SW Utah desert which is certainly exotic to a person say from the east coast where sight lines are limited by tree trunks and green.
There are days of cloud cover to change views, mostly conditions are per pic, at least for my annual November visits.
I mix my rides between riding per above on less tech trails, more about pedaling, and the chunky that I will ride such as Barrel Roll etc. The Hurricane Cliffs trails have some connecting trails to make for possible shortening a ride because my eyes were bigger than my legs when I planned my ride. Recently I rode to the end of the JEM trail along and above the Virgin River gorge. I saw official BLM carsonite posts with one way stickers on them. The intent is to make this part of the JEM 1 way to eliminate user conflict at sketchy places. A new return trail named Carne Asada stays on wide open terrain climbing back out. Trail is aptly named to what is wanted to do to the ecological destroyers: grazing cows. Dead Ringer trail fits in the scheme. The tread here is rough from cast in cow foot prints. The jarring is from the tire dropping into the depression then hitting to far side edge. They are just foot prints, it’s the sheer number of them. Seems cows chose the path of least resistance of a cleared path. I spoke with a BLM range manager, I expressed concern about what those cows would eat and if they were meeting terms of grazing contract. He said yes, end of discussion.
Back to familiarity is me not capturing images digitally.
Yesterday I drove down to Santa Clara to ride barrel Roll etc. I park at the bottom of the Cove wash access, the ride starts right out punch in the gut climb. I am having some success on mitigating my drive to match my breathing which lessens my speed but lengthens my time on my bike. I climb techy Precipice to junction with Side winder and Barrel Roll. Sidewinder is an up then turn around down. I was passed by ebike riders who were not the said target audience of older riders keeping up with their younger rider buddies. This is BLM land and ebikes are not allowed, but if there is no enforcement, what the heck, this motor eliminates dehydration from exertion sweating.
Becoming older is not for the weak as the effects of years of wearing the body increases intensity and frequency of reminders of past decisions. The Garmin computer I use calculates number of recovery hours before next abuse. As an example after yesterday’s 7.99 miles climbing 955′ pedaling for 1 hr 16 mins was 31 hours. I will ride the Cliffs today inside the recovery time. I should abide. My bdoy does not jump out of bed any more, it is a more slide over the edge of the bed putting weight on my first leg down and gently increasing weight while listening to signals of discontent then the other leg then standing up. OK so far legs have worked, now take 3 steps to front of van. What’s barking, will getting moving make the bark (s) go away? I am not riding as frequently as in younger years, I have strung 2 days of rest betwen rides to my body’s benefit. Some pains go away, some remain and I ride because that’s what I do. I am letting sunshine warm before embarking on upcoming ride out on Cliffs.
Reading Kingsolver’s newest book, Devon Copperhead. She was inspired by Dickens David Copperfield.