The First Stop!

The First Sojourn (aka my rear hurts)

Yesterday I rode my bike from the Boulder area up to Loveland, thinking it would take 3 to 4 hours at 31 miles. I made it in 2.5 hours plus a 30 minute break for lunch! I was flying over the terrain so fast that I forgot to take one picture. I wanted to see how fast I could actually go in order to dispel any delusions of grandeur I might have had about the distances I could cover in a day.

I did have a minor repair to make when I first got going at 1:45 PM on Jun 20th. The front tire began rubbing hard against the left front break pad. I guess the weight I added to the front panniers (saddle bags) shifted the tire over. It was a quick fix in the grass with an allen wrench, but such a bummer when you are heading down the road full of inspiration!

After that it was smooth sailing, and I man sailing. When you're carrying so much gear, you can peddle one time and the gear momentum keeps you going for a while at a cool 10 miles per hour, unless of course you hit an incline even of 1 degree. Then you have to peddle hard in a low gear (I never downshifted into the lower set of gears) jus to maintain 4 MPH! Whew, and your legs burn deep. But then I managed to break my speed record of 22 MPH set last week with an amazing 31 MPH down a sloping hill. I sped past a field full of cows and moo'd at them loudly, and they all looked at me like I was crazy, turning their heads toward me! I felt blessed by the Taurians!

The main problem was that I'm wearing a backpack and I'm too stubborn to give it up, because originally I was going to go vagabonding to foreign lands with no bike. The bike may get ditched in San Fran or Hawaii. We'll see. I hadn't named this blue aerodynamic machine yet. I wanted to experience some blood sweat and tears with the bike first. I take my relationship with bikes very seriously. This is only the fourth bike I've owned in 39 years. But the name hit me in the middle of the trip.

Magellan!

I keep talking about how it would be cool to circumnavigate the world on a bicycle, so in the hopes of attempting and accomplishing that, I dubbed this amazing bike Magellan. It even sounds like a Magi in the first two syllables!

When I finally got to Loveland, I came swooping down the last hill right past my storage locker and waved at my stuff. When I got to my mom's place a mile into town, I was glad she wasn't there, because I immediately unpacked the entire bike and gave serious thoughts to every item I'm carrying. Mainly because my butt and back were in a lot of pain. My brother Marc told me that my bum was going to ache bad, but there's nothing like experiencing it to get you to lighten your load. So I got rid of some of those extra shirts, etc and repacked everything smarter, with minimum weight in the backpack. I like that the backpack shielded my hind side from the intensity of the sun. That was a bonus feature! So now I'm only going to carry my Thermarest sleeping mat, my I-pad, and my Passport in the top of the backpack so there's not a bunch of weight on my lower back causing my butt to hurt even more.

According to the experts you have to develop new muscles in your rear for this. It's like weight lifting. After a good workout you need a rest period to let the muscle tissues rebuild. So that night I watched the Truman Show on my HD TV at my mom's house and thought about how I feel like Truman heading toward that wall that defines the fake boundary of this reality we tacitly accept. My intention is to bust out of this false existence and find a new way of being in the universe!

Fellow Magi Peter Roth, one of my deepest spiritual brothers on the planet called me the next day and asked if he could drive up from Denver and hang one last time. I was delighted. I had settled in at a cool coffee shop called Dag Boz in downtown Loveland, CO where I walked in for my first stop of the journey to work on my lap top and finish digitizing 20 years of writing. Plus I had two more hours of HD video to download of Peter and myself at the Flatirons the other day where we interviewed each other for the new astrology documentary.

Right when I walked into the coffee shop I encountered two baristas who were talking about ASTROLOGY! I walked up and smiled and told them about my profession and my journey. One particular young woman named Marjorie jumped out of her skin, as she had just set a goal to have an internship with a professional astrologer. She loved astrology! So of course I settled in at a table and broke out my lap top for a 20 minute coffee shop special interpretation! And of course, the cosmic muse came through and blew her mind with the wisdom of astrology. I think we're gonna be training together over the internet soon! That's a picture of her with a complementary copy of Return of the Magi above.

By the time I had sat at the coffee shop all day working with Peter, my lower back hurt too. I think they chose those wooden chairs just to get the customers to leave quicker! But I was there from AM till 7 PM! So after that my brain was fried and Peter and I went up to Fort Collins where we had amazing Thai food at Bhan Thai near the University. I had their Mussaman Curry because ever since I tasted the most perfect meal in my life at Thai Orchid restaurant in Asheville NC, I'm on a quest to experience that again! It was quite amazing here too! Plus they had vegan Coconut Ice Cream that Peter, a fellow vegan, and I devoured. They even gave us shredded coconut to put on top of the coconut ice cream, which seemed incestual to me. Peter and I love to laugh together and make up puns, two wise crack machines! Part of me would love to hang out in Fort Collins and work on creative projects for a month and eat at Bhan Thai, but the road is calling me hard, and Nelson BC is my destination where I intend to "settle" for a season or two. I do plan on stopping in south of Missoula to hang with some fellow Magi in the woods of Rivendel (actually Hamilton), so that will be restful.

Today I'm back at Daz Bog doing some last minute computer preparations and writing this blog before I strike out for Fort Collins today. I'll at least spend one night there hanging with my friend Melissa and her family. She's an energy healer and chiropractor, and she's offered me an adjustment, and I can't say no to that! I plan on waking up early the next day and riding for my firs full day into the wilds of Wyoming! Hopefully I'll have that seat broken in a little better with my healed rear, less sore back, and adjusted neck!