Chitter Chatter

I usually bike alone. I have lots of friends who ride, but for many of them their schedules are reasonably predictable - they work, they go for a lunchtime ride, or a 5:30 ride, or a Saturday morning ride. Me, I go for the spontaneous ride, the scrounge-a-babysitter ride, the hubby's-home-early ride, the whenever-it-works ride. So I put 95% of my miles on my wheels keeping myself company. Not that I mind. I'm an introvert in a family of extroverts. An experience that is summed up extraordinarily well by this article, pointed out by blogger, writer, and introvert extraordinaire Dorcas. Time alone is precious, silence golden, the miles spin by and I utter a small sigh of relief at being able to recharge long enough to be swept up by the energy of my hubby and kids again.

But today our neighbor Richard called. I think he was actually calling to see if hubby wanted to go riding, but hubby wisely and happily asked if I wanted to go with him instead (wisely because hubby has been out of town for a week and I'm itching to go ride!) This turned out to be a great thing. For one thing, Richard is one of those most marvelous of riders. Someone who is faster than you, and so pushes your envelope, but doesn't rub it in or make you pay for it. He dropped me on a hill or two, but hovered patiently at the top until I caught up. He's also one of the great conversationalists of the world. Walk by his house and you might not get home for an hour. On top of that, we have a ton of things in common: we're both pilots, WWII history buffs (recently ran into him touring a B-17 at the airport, not surprisingly!), both own Triumph motorcycles, are passionate photographers, have skydived, travelled, scuba dived on WWII wrecks in the South Pacific. He's also had a lot of experiences that I've never had, he's been in the Navy, and has been an antique dealer and expert. He's got a thousand stories.

I couldn't believe how fast a two and a half hour ride flew by. It felt like an hour, maybe less. And we had these unreal winds to boot. I mean it's always windy around here, but these were great gusting blasts (most of my laundry was blown off of my line when I got home). A solo ride in such conditions would've been a tough slog. So today I'm grateful for the good luck that landed us two houses down from a fellow cyclist and generally cool person, and for the opportunity to be out in the sunshine, the fresh air, with good strong legs propelling me along, and the bonus of a friend.