The Pumpkin Man Rides His Bike

[the mingo]

This day began with me watching the sun rise over a rain puddle in my driveway. Then the cornfield across the road began to steam in the rays of that sun. Next up was spending a half hour checking out the bike offerings on the local craigslist. Saw a couple of nice bikes but the frames are too big for me. Once upon a time this was no problem for me but last year I bought a new bike from a bike shop and that frame was fitted to me. This turned out to be a revelation of sorts & it's a revelation every time I take that bike out for a cruise. Before this I had never had a bike that took into account my body size, leg length, torso size, arm reach, - it sounds involved but it's not. When you spend a lot of time on a bike & that bike fits you right a psychic benefit comes into play. In this case that psychic benefit is called enjoyment. An enhanced subtle pleasure. You might not even realize it or be able to articulate it other than the notion you get about it, that you really like riding that bike.

My SE Tripel fits me to a T. I like riding that bike. Another thing is that the frame of that bike is made from steel. Folks don't realize it but steel is alive. Even the hardest steel has spring in it in a way that aluminum does not. Aluminum saves you weight and I understand that but I'm old school. When I was growing up every bike was made from steel. For me the difference between aluminum & steel going down the road is night & day. A steel framed bike flexes a hundred different ways for every foot of surface traveled over in such a way that an aluminum framed bike does not. Another "psychic benefit" - enhancing enjoyment. If you do not experience enhanced enjoyment in anything you have or do you may as well punch your ticket at the graveyard because you are not just growing old but you are truly dead.

when it fits
when it's alive
everything else shines

[the mingo]

Found a small bird skull yesterday while out riding a backcountry road. I had dismounted my bike to sit beneath an old & large roadside maple with my canteen & a pack of fig newton's in my hand. Looking down from the spot where I sat I saw bones. Bird bones. From an overwintering individual who had not made the cut. I stuck my finger in the pile moving the bones around which revealed the skull beneath. I had come hunting haiku in the fashion of past Japanese practitioners, now here I sat looking at bird bones. However, making a haiku out of them proved to be beyond my ability so I detached the skull from the neck bones and put it in my pocket. It rode home with me to sit on my desk.

these small bones
had once let their owner fly
now they lay unmoving on the ground
bleached of flesh & feather
with grass growing through them

[judih]

delicate skull
present tense
past adventures

[the mingo]

* Mornin' judih *

[judih]

evenin mingo!

[the mingo]

Rain all yesterday - no riding - rain all night - rain at dawn, may prove out to be no riding today either. Sky solid grey & darker grey for two days straight. Not scattered thunderstorms but a weather system. This is not the Pacific Northwest in winter but Tug Hill Plateau in the great state of Yew Nork, midsummer. It has rained so much the last two days the water in my well has become a bit muddy.

Woke up this morning with other times & other places using my head as a playground.

Think I'll head over to youtube to watch an English lass ride her bike around while I drink coffee and the day unfolds. It'a a dirty job but someone has to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAYq-UTb4AQ

[whoaisme]

wonderful musings here, mingo.

it sure is hard to smoke an e-cig in the rain

[the mingo]

Thx whoaisme, glad you enjoyed.

[the mingo]

This morning I went for a roll just ahead of dawn. Ain't had a blue sky for three days, it's been raining for three days & nights. Skies still grey but no rain now. About 50 degrees. Had to wear a sweatshirt to keep the warmth in. Decided to run the main drag through the nearest village. I didn't expect to see anyone out that early. Tucked down about half a block off the main drag of the village is an old water powered mill site from a previous century. Only things left there now are two old buildings and the mill damn with its race. One of those buildings has been left as it was & is boarded up. The other has been converted to house some kind of administrative space, village offices I assume. The street that runs through the site is called Mill Street ( big surprise that ) and I hung a left onto that but halfway down the hill to the dam I pulled up short. In the grove of trees just beyond the bridge over the stream between the dam and the dam race stood a man reading aloud from an open book he held in his hands to the grove of trees around him. Because it's very quiet at this hour I could hear what he was reading. It was from the Old Man and the Sea. He was reading it to the trees around him to the sound of of water going over the dam.

I may not be the most astute of 'ku hunters but I know a Holy Moment when I stumble into one. I turned my bike around and pedaled back up the hill as quietly as I could. I had my captured 'ku tucked into the small pad I carry for such when out on the hunt. I never know what to expect when I leave the longhouse mounted up on my bike and loaded for 'ku but I am always in a state of expectation.

Hell yeah, Mongolia.

_________________________

waiting for dawn
everything beyond my window
wrapped in dark
_________________________

[WIREMAN]

aint life sweet

[the mingo]

aint life sweet

it has it's moments for sure

[the mingo]

43.4056 degrees N, 76.1261 degrees W
Elevation - 500 ft
Temp - 41
Wind - E @ 2mph
92% humidity
5:36 a.m.

... watching the sunrise, God willing I will see this same sun set this evening - everything yet to be that lies between these two events is anyone's guess at this point. In the time it has taken me to write this the sun has cleared the trees ...

poems can't be predicted
except to the extent they are
virtually certain to occur

[still.trucking]

image source

Don't the sunrise look so pretty
Never such a sight
Like a rollin' into New York City
With the skyline in the morning light
Roll right through the night
I said Roll
Roll right through the night
I said Roll - roll - roll


Three days L.A. to New York city, on chewing gum, coffee and rock and roll
The last couple of hours I was barely conscious, like some sort of out of body experience, fighting sleep, watching myself drive that truck with a distanced mind and then when I saw that sunrise over the new york skyline I was wide a wake again,
eidetic images from an old truckers pack of tarot cards.

I played this song over and over and over and over and over and over again from the Delaware Water Gap to Manhattan,.

like a mantra, roll roll roll roll right through the night

got a new bike, I am old but I am happy when I am rolling that bike

[the mingo]

Thx for the song Jack and your memory of that run - glad to hear you got a new bike too, you ain't spoke lately to if you were still ridin' or not.

[the mingo]

When you throw a leg over a bike your entire relationship to the landscape changes. You are no longer a pedestrian but a velocipedist. Instead of being infantry you have become cavalry - a mounted warrior.

Not meant specifically for speed bicycle gearing's main thrust is, by means of engineering, meant to increase the options available to a rider to meet the challenge of landscape & prevailing winds. Bike gearing is a feat of engineering meant for cadence -

Cadence = rhythm. Rhythm is what gives music it's power. It's power of motion & it's power to impart that motion to move the soul. As in a song I once heard, "God is Rhythm" -

Rhythm is how motion is accomplished. Rhythm is how a velocipedist moves over & through both time & distance.

A bicycle is a tool as a sword is a tool. A means of expression. On it even the most humble rider is transformed. He/she becomes a samurai of rhythm & motion.

A bicycle exists in roundness as a rhythm machine.
As such it becomes pure poetry.
____________________________________________

Even these long days
are not nearly long enough
for the skylarks' song - Basho