Lone Wolf Hustle
Thread started by
Jeronimo at 04.25.07 - 1:19 pm
There's no better way to clear my head than to get out and ride.
I happened to find myself at the end of the weekend and a week's worth of night shifts staring me in the face. Sure, I could crash out early and have a lazy day before work the next night, but that would be too easy. The promise of dark and relatively empty streets beckoned with their siren song. Answering that call was easy.
A quick once-through on the bike is easy with a fixed gear. Chain lubed? Check. Tires inflated? Check. Lights working? Check. A glance at the clock on the way out of the door caught the digits changing to 2230 and away I sped into the night.
Where to go? What to see? Sometimes starting with no direction is a good way to jump start the head clearing. Just pedal and start whipping that brakeless piece of magnificence around somewhat familar residential streets close to home, fading into a lesser known realm. A few minutes in and it was obvious where I was headed, towards an amusement park in search of the good sidestreet route that was a round tuit since moving into the area. Recognizing cul-de-sacs by street titles like Way, Place and Court made the
dead-end turns few and far between. Within minutes, I found myself in the general area, doubling back on a few streets that took me into the main arteries where I didn't want to be. Finding that elusive street that traverses a freeway without having to deal with the insanity of on and off ramps is always the crown jewel of a preferred route. After finding that particular crown jewel, the rest was easy.
Ok, so now I'm circling in a parking lot and probably being watched with great intent by an Electric Eye or ten and am only 15 minutes and a few miles in. Drifting West seemed like a good idea, especially because I grew up there and using sidestreets would become a lot easier. Using the main arteries as mile markers, doglegs and points of reference helped me connect the dots much more quickly. The more familiar the streets became, the faster I went, knowing which way the streets juked and jived and when to
listen more closely for cross traffic.
Speeding through the resedential neighborhoods of suburbia late at night reveals much more than one might think. I could tell who had real roses in their yard instead of the odorless hybrids that are commonly sold at the local big box stores nowdays. Mental notes were being taken every time orange blossoms were detected for future reference in December or so. The most "human" activity I observed other than people coming and going in their internal combustion security blankets was people who have been
relegated/trained to smoke outside. The looks on a few faces as I sped by through the night at 25mph+ were priceless. Traffic was almost non-existent and there were no bad encounters on the whole trip.
Eventually finding myself on the street I grew up on, it was obvious what my next move was going to be. In an outward circle-esque pattern, a ride by of where all of my friends lived when we were growing up made sense. I had ridden to each of those places countless times as a kid and a teenager, so it was a nice flashback addition to the ride. Some of the places looked very similar, others looked completely different, and a few were gone altogether. The last street I hit before heading back East was where my friends Mark and Dale had lived. The last time I spoke with Mark he told me that he had run into Dale's dad and was informed by him that Dale had committed suicide a few years ago. No hands on the bars and the beer that had been riding in a pocket garnered a toast and salute to an old friend who had passed on by his own choice for reasons unknown.
Now to find a way home without retracing any of the route that was taken while westbound. This time it was going from familiar to less familiar. Even so, I kept my speed up, dodging in and out of the cookie-cutter lined streets, following instincts and the occasional double yellow lines on the through routes. The sidestreet patterns that the strip mall sprawl creates are pretty easy to follow once one gets the hang of it. A different way over the aforementioned freeway brought in a second crown jewel to the night's ride and
signaled that the end was near.
After finding the key secondary street I was looking out for, the home stretch became a series of hard sprints. Lightening up on the pedals to cross the last few main arteries without becoming a hood ornament was a saving grace and chance to catch my breath before the next all out sprint. The last turn was a half of
a mile from my place, so slowing down there made a nice warm-down before rolling up to my door. A check of the clock upon walking in the door showed it at 0030. The mileage? If I sat down with gmaps and started e-scribbling, that convoluted twist would take hours to map out. Besides, it doesn't matter because I had fun.
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