¡Viva la Revolución!

Revolution often times starts with the insistence that things ought to be done differently. Intellectuals, schemers and misanthropes alike coalesce into an unlikely group to effect a collective change that, for lack of a better term, gets the job done. It was this esprit de corps that I found myself driving Chollaball north on I-17 to pick up a Salsa Mukluk he just purchased from Revolution Bikes. It was a fat bike and we were going to take it out for a ride. As I banked my vehicle into the turns climbing the big hill, I listened to Cholla talk about the stresses of short-sales and pools which now were deemed to be a public health hazard by the City of Mesa. It was in this stream of stress-venting that he so often partakes in and that I’m willing to capture, that my mind drifted to the svelte Pivot 429 hitched to the back of the vehicle I was driving. It seemed to make no sense at all to plod along behind a fat bike on a bike made to fly. The revolution hinged on the realization that things don’t always have to go the way of the rabbit…..

Pulling onto Mikes Pike in Flagstaff and parking outside Revolution, we hung out for a while while things got sorted out. Change the gearing, adjust this, tug on that…..I lay in wait patient at first, trying my best to honor the shafts of light beaming down on the industrial space below from spacious skylights above.

During the varying transactions going on, I convinced myself that I was going to rent a Mukluk as well…in for a penny……

As my bike was checked out, I ogled the new 2013 Mukluks and pondered how well they would handle a fully loaded rider on a snowy approach up Forest Road 418; transporting me more quickly to the more isolated lines on the peaks……for better or worse, I’m game to figure it out.

Hanging out in bike shops for extended periods of time is never a good idea for a lush like me. I started looking at the antithesis of the fat bike and started convincing myself that I needed one as well…

Knowing how much a fat tire costs these days….the skinny tire approach starts to make a bit more sense….

This line of reasoning was abandoned as soon as we hit gold…..I don’t think I can ever give up on a ride that takes me to places like this, away from the claustrophobic neon distraction some call civilization.

Pulling up ahead to snap shots of Cholla on his new ride, I crouched across from a rising switchback, hidden in crispy bracken land-forms which had given over her beauty to the third act of the season……

…..a season that beams a champagne supernova out from a canvas of blue....

As we rode north I realized that my face was hurting from smiling so much. The bike was so much fun, requiring a slower pace and more deliberate steering than I was used to

But now in the forced hindsight that is 39,000 ft up, eastbound to a business conference in seat 6A; I realize that my grin was not just a product of the bike….but in the short-lived revolution of fall...

Every color has its time….and when the gold gives up the shortest season, mistress winter will return with her white cloak to rule the long season…

Abandoning my bike in a turn, I hike into a clearing and cast my gaze upwards. The afternoon light angles down against bare trunks holding gold leaves up high; a light breeze creating that rustling sound that only a copse of Aspen can make…..

The breeze picks up, rocking the tops of the trees which issue a flurry of golden leaves from above……flitting too and fro like fat snowflakes of sunshine; they make their way down onto us and the loamy forest below. I stand there, transfixed at the beauty of it all, holding out my tongue in hopes that the fallen pedals of sunshine will land on my tongue. I don’t want to leave……

I recall all of this now as I fly in the darkness of night towards Orlando….surrounded my many who through either ignorance or will, know not the awe and beauty to be had where the pavement ends. When I started this blog 5 years ago, I was undergoing a revolution to free myself from the geographic and mental corporate boundaries which I had shackled myself to. I would never have been able to predict the earth-shattering change that would occur in my life over the past few years. But within that time, the revolution has gone on. It’s a fight to keep alive and fresh, the thoughts, feelings and emotions elicited when I put myself, Out There.  Viva la Revoluction!