My friend, Evelyn, and I bike on Sunday mornings. We are fair weather bicyclists. We only venture out when the conditions are good. That means sunny skies and comfortable temperatures and moderate terrain.  Light wind or none at all. Neither of us is into suffering for the sport, although we both like a respectable workout.  That means when we are tired, we stop.  When we are hungry, we stop.  When we hurt, we stop. You would think that with those constraints, we would never go anywhere, but it’s just the opposite.

Evelyn has found just about every bike path in Boulder, the biking capital of the world. Our rides are filled with a collage of images—the community garden on 20th street, the top of 4th street with its sturdy homes nestled against the foothills, the last regular street in Boulder before the gentle slopes rise up into mountain lion country, the tennis center in back of the hotel that housed satellite dishes for television stations when the Jon Benet circus was going on, the resting spot on the banks of Boulder Creek, with a rock proclaiming the place as “Jones Fishing Hole.”

We’ve seen the back of landfills, the back of housing projects (no, this is not nearly as oppressive or dangerous as the projects in Chicago), and the backs of countless pedestrians on a morning stroll. We’ve streaked by the VFW hall, modern houses that could be on the cover of Architectural Digest, large expanses of soccer fields and prairie dog villages. When you travel by bike, you see the back yard and the front yard of life—families picnicking in parks, a son and father stopped by the creek to fish, lovers holding hands, grandmothers moving slowly on walkers.

In addition to letting life in, there is an aspect to these rides of letting it all out. Evelyn knows there is something in me that wants to let it rip.  She is ten years older and gives me permission to go ahead, when I feel the urge. She clocks me on her bike speedometer, trying to keep up and knowing that I’m going a few more miles per hour faster than she is.

When I let loose on my bike, it is all about being with my body, trusting it, leaning into it, with very little rationale thinking. I’m aware of pedestrians and other slower moving bicyclists in my line of sight.  But they are little more than sign posts that I mutter “on your left” to.   I’m following the curve of the path and I’m screaming.  Biking is a physical version of a scream. After I’ve pedaled at top speed for several minutes, I feel as if I can breathe again. Whatever needed to come out has been expelled with every rotation of my chain around the gears.

When we are not trying to break the sound barrier on our bikes, we are catching up on our lives—telling each other about work and family, about our recent pebble in the shoe incidents that are making life uncomfortable, and about our recent wins in bringing our humanity back to ourselves. It’s reflection time at 10 mph. Not exactly the slow lane, but not the fast lane either. 

In between our words, there is the low hum of nature and man, mixed together into a pleasing rhapsody. A lawn mower in the distance, birds chirping, babbling water from the creek, thu-whump, thu-whump, thu-whump of bike tires going over wooden bridges, a high-pitched warning from prairie dogs to their hole mates.  We can hear life speaking to us on these rides.

At the end of our rides, Evelyn and I guess how far we’ve ridden.  We like to think that we are in the company of the biking enthusiasts who come from all over the world to train in Boulder.  They are the ones who speed past us, as we are speeding past young families.  Evelyn and I know ourselves well. We settle for going a distance that is a daily warm up for an Ironman triathlete.

At Evelyn’s house, I load my bike in the car for a 15-mile trip home.  Evelyn is the gracious bartender, knowing every customer’s favorite drink. She offers up “the orange stuff”, a well-blended mix of papaya, orange, and peach juices, the kind of drink they sell at organic grocery stores. It’s better than rich, dark chocolate after sex.

As I drive home, I realize that these bike rides are not about exercising on a quiet morning. They are not about participating in a sport or seeing how far we can go.  No, these rides are about filling up on life and getting the full expression of ourselves into the world, about breathing in and breathing out, not just with our lungs, but with our spirit. It is meditation and therapy and being connected to the world, all while gliding on wheels. 

On Sunday mornings, I see and feel the world more deeply, from a place grounded in the senses. It makes me grateful to be alive.