A much-needed solitary ride through the highlands

I had quite a stressy time again. At work and at the ironforge were a lot of things that - while not all being bad - required a lot of time and energy. So, what to do? I am so glad I cannot even begin to tell that I have managed to get on my bike again in cases like this, for I had lost the need a bit, or better, the impetus to fulfil it. So, off into the woods, following the lane out into some real hills. To the real foothills of the Sauerland I rode, and when I got there, I followed a trail just for the adventure of it. I had not ridden it before-or so I thought. It was granny gear from the beginning on, and huffing and puffing at that, and the hill got steeper still, and more technical, with roots and rocks and sticks and stone, and it seemed to go on forever. Maybe you know the likes: A trail that it so demanding and challenging that you at the same time beg for the ordeal to end as well as wishing it will go on forever. For in your exhaustion you can sense something that is lost to mankind these days. A honest sweat, but that´s not all of it. It is like to a battle with sword and shield (and trust me, I know how that feels, too), but out of your free will. You COULD give in to your exhaustion. But you don´t. You move the pedals, and each revolution is an ordeal, and a victory.

The forests all the while were radiant with the light of a sunny spring day, full of scents of herbs and flowers, and I took it in with every heavy breath. My heart was pounding in my chest. In moments like these I feel that it´s not that healthy anymore... but then in moments like these there is an extreme amount of work that my poor heart has to do... and pardon my praising myself when I say that that uphill was not for everyone... so I was quite content with my body even working the way it did. I know people half my age that are well-trained that would not even consider riding up monsters like this... ;-) It´s not that I want to say that I am any better than them. But maybe there is a different mindset involved. I tend to welcome challenges like this more than I´d put emphasis on the ordeal and I remember that I braved difficult situations before. This in turn helps me to stay positive in a life that´s not exactly easy at times. If I rode up trails like this (and worse) or down trails like Dalco (which was a right nightmare to ride with a bike from 1994), then I´ll be able to withstand what life throws into my face. Even more so, the so-called "normal" people who insist on me changing my life according to their design would not even dare to put themselves in situations like this. Those who tell us they live according to the "ad baculum" canon, are not necessarily the strongest. Might may make right, but there is a limit to what "they" (also read: us) can control. The birds were still singing wildly. The sun was still shining, and still I ride up hills for the fun of it. 

What for, do you ask, and you do righteously ask. Why even bother? Why put energy into fighting gravity? What will be the outcome?

I should say this picture answers best your question. For the sake of the feeling when you round that bend and look into a tiny dale where time seems to stand still. When the incline stops or gets less extreme and you feel the wind in your helmet. When you come to a crossing and find flowers, lovingly set into a surrounding stone wall, not even on the property, but just for the sake of beauty...

And then you look back, and you grin at the ordeal and rejoice in the fact that you did it.

No, you will not gain riches by fighting up that hill. All you might gain is a bit like the proverbial fairy gold. You cannot buy anything by it, but light on the leaves will pay off far more. It´s just the same with scenic vistas. It is a bit difficult to comprehend, and you can just get the gist if you exclude something: You are not capable of seeing scenic vistas without an uphill. There´s no easy way. ;-)

Over these old hills, over the ridge I rolled with a smile.

Oh, and there´s the big picture...

But also a small flower by the roadside...

...

...

Rolling on, with hill and dale, I went on my merry way, on and on.

Then, trails again, into a nature preservation site.

There was an education site for kids by the trail.

I really loved this wood spirit standing guard at the trailhead.

...

..and the carving of the owl.

...

Yeah, that is the reason I love these rides. I love my bike for it provides me with an ability to see places like this. For the flow of flying down technical trails, for the vistas and the things that I see.

For small trails through the thicket...

And the shortcuts to places far off that are not that far off when your imagination is not far off. The chimney in the distance is a power plant site near Werdohl.

Trail followed trail and technical chutes changed to gentle slopes, steep and brutal inclines changed with gentle rolling, flowing fireroads.

I rode a secret trail through the thicket I had not ridden for ages...

...and there, on the top of things, I had a sit down...

...

...and a cuppa tree;-).

Then I was on my way down the valley on a very challenging and seldom ridden trail...

It was a very long ride, but it went all too soon.

The wonder of spring

 It´s been a while, on a day when the sun was shining so vibrantly, that I felt that urge again. I had to get outside, and so I packed my foraging gear and a cuppa and saddled my not-so-trusty steed (for it is crumbling at the moment and I lack the money to fix it) to get out into the woods. I am very glad that I have managed to ride more frequently this year. I even commute to work again, which amasses to a bargain of about 100€ per month! Plus, it makes me fitter. I also have started the year by drinking up to 1.5 l of birch sap per day, which made me do at least a 20km ride each day on top, for the sap does not collect itself;-). Also it makes me wonder what crap we normally drink. When drinking unprocessed birch sap I have the impression that it takes an immediate positive effect on my metabolism, and, comparing it to soft drinks and alcohol I wonder how much crap we normally drink... but I am realistic enough to know that I will continue to drink my beer and my coke from time to time. It´s just that the effect is that cool, and that there is actually something about that myth of the "tree of rejuvenation", aka the birch that´s not entirely... erm ... mythological ;-), or better, that indeed is mytho-logical.

Anyway;-), I rode out to the hills, and really basked in the warm sun. Spinning my cranks in slow circles, just breathing and climbing above the valley, away from the exhaust fumes and the ruckus and the noise, it felt as if a weight had dropped from my shoulders, just like it has felt again and again.

We tend to forget that in our world. We are all bombarded with the latest bad news, with greed and hate and lust and violence, with need and want and whatnot, that we forget that somewhere birds still twitter and don´t preach hate with it, so to say, but just sing, because they feel like singing or because it´s what birds do in spring. And trees just grow, with no meaning needed apart from that. It´s all still there, and we are the ones that have alienated themselves from tree and bird and fox and hare.
  

 Sometimes I tend to think that the bicycle is the last sensible machine that man has invented. You push the cranks, it lurches forward, it´s simple and has little ecological footprint when compared to a car (ANY car, even a modern electric engine), a plane or rocketship. Even a mountainbike for all its hardcore image is a humble means of transportation. It does you good and takes you places, full stop. Of course, if you do skids down an alpine slope, chance is, you will have some more or less grave ecological impact, but so will a caribou sliding down that same slope. Compared to a V-8 engine this impact is outright ridiculously small, even if you consider the production. But it´s not about ecological calculations. It´s just the good feeling I had. Take out the old warhorse, and ride to the hills where things still make some sense or do not even need to make sense.

 Now I think long and hard about the current political situation in the world, and I do this far too often for my own good. But let us be honest. We all know we are preparing for our death. Mankind will be extinguished, maybe even as early as next year. The American and North Korean dictators as well as the one in Russia, the one in Turkey and the lunatics in the Middle East are all playing with the fuse and will light the fire soon (and mind you, I do not exclude our own local and political German dictators), because their tiny egos demand for a nuclear war to feel as if they had a huge genital. It´s that simple. It´s not about any God or Allah or what is right or wrong. It´s about who has the power, and who has the least of a conscience to blow us all into oblivion. And we have reached a point where a simple mechanism of nature is taking effect. Mankind is reaching the verge of overpopulation and has routed a good part of the ecosystem, and so the population is to be reduced by the simple failsafe of a nuclear world war. Most of us will die soon, and I daresay I won´t survive, too. There is nothing I could do to prevent this. There is no election I could attend, no measure of protest that will stop this failsafe. And it is right that we will be extinguished (for the most part). Why then should I make plans for the future? Why should I bother to buy a load of shite that will be useless? If I will survive, fine, but why should I care? The world will be a shitty place for the rest of my life any which way. I will always have a hard time living. There will be no children, no family for me. And no happiness.

Except for something very, very simple. There will always be a view from a hilltop. Maybe you will look down into a valley of ruins and shacks and desolation, and maybe not, but you will always be able to stand upon a hilltop (provided you survive). There maybe even will be birds singing, and maybe some trees still standing. Hope dies last, one says, but as long as one human being still lives, he or she will hope. And what I know for sure is that I always had a hard time living. It´s not that this will change for the better, but if it will change for the worse, I am well accustomed to that. What I want to say is that there will always be things that count. And these things will always count.

A bicycle is but one means to experience these things, but one it is. 

 And I am fighting to get this resolve, over and over again, as you well know from reading my blog. Often I think it´s just superficial and superfluous to just have some careless, plain old fun. Mountainbike riding as I often practice it is a surrogate activity not meaning a thing, but then, why should it mean a thing? I watched a buzzard some days ago. Okay, so he was circling for prey, but why did he go into seemingly unmotivated dives and rolls? Doves to that, as well as ravens, bluetits and sparrows and swallows. They play in the air. Their need for sustenance is far more dire than ours can ever be, and yet they play. Wild cats, foxes, deer - they all play.  

 Yeah, the situation we are faced with, is no reason to be glad and cheerful. But there´s nothing we can do now to prevent the rout of mankind.

So I figured I´d rather have some fond memories of sunlight and trailriding and playing on my bike and drinking spring in a mug of birch sap when sitting in the dark of a bunker or waiting for the cancer to kill me slowly. At least then I will have the notion, however ridiculous it may be, however worthless is may seem at first glance, that even when I am dying in torment, there once was a time when I lived, and really felt alive.

 And, yeah, spring is on the way, and there will be spring, or seasons, at least after a period of time. When the nuclear winter will be over, nature will reclaim what was lost. As it is the case even after the most hopeless winter of all, after every winter there will be a new spring.

 Maybe the lake, a jewel now that mirrors the sky under a vibrant sun, will be a dried-out ditch, rock-strewn and full of debris. But that ditch will remember the time when it was a lake.

 And even after the desolation, something will sprout. And after the rout of mankind, nature will prosper again, prosper and will be left to itself to grow as it was intended to be.

But what is most important: It is NOW that everything basks in a vibrant sun. It is NOW that the birds are singing. It is NOW that the sap rises and the trees sprout and blossom. It is not tomorrow that you can take out your bike to go on a beautiful ride in the sunshine. It is not tomorrow that you will have fun, but NOW. We are still alive. We might not be able to do anything against what will happen soon. So why the fuck should we listen to all the bad news and the next moron telling us not to do this or that? Of course that does not tell you should go out and kill your little sister and eat her shanks seasoned with thyme just because someone told you not to.

But their entire system of morale and value has brought us into this fix. It is not competent to bind us, for its moral integrity is non-existent and therefore non-contiguous. Meaning, those that forged their swords to ploughshares now plough for those that did not. Yap, violence still is not an option. I despise it for the stress that it will give me afterwards. It always comes full - circle, that´s what I am still saying. Some things will always make sense. If you whack someone, chance is, he will strike you back. If you kill someone´s brother, chance is, he will kill you for it, law or justice or not. They tell us (and keep telling us) that man is more than an animal while they act like predators upon us. Yap, man is more than an animal, for no degree of violence such as the one man employs against even his loved ones is known in nature. Foxes kill out of lust, that´s true, but never so much that one endangers an entire local ecosystem. Owls keep mice alive as a food storage and even mast them, but with little impact on the local ecosystem, too. Animals never go that far as man does. We are an abomination, born naked, with no scales to protect us, no bristles to fend off animals, not even fur or pelt, with no fangs nor beak nor claws, and traumatized by it, so much in fact that we are not content in making our own fangs and beaks and claws, but throwing them around the world and making them explode, so that one claw can kill hundreds and hundreds of thousands and millions and our entire species. It is out of fear that we do this.

And now they tell us to fear. They thrive on besting the latest bad news. And they tell us to be prepared when there can be no means of preparation adequate. And they tell us lies that the guy next door, the people in the country some 3000km away are responsible for all that shite. They keep us in fear in order to make us hate and in order to support their own fear and hate.

But it is NOW that the sun is shining. It is NOW that the swallows and bluetits play in the air. It is NOW that the sap is rising and the trees are in blossom. I am content with making my own claws, so that I am up to par with the other animals. I am content with my bike, and I love to play. And, that´s the culprit, why should I not?

 I am extremely grateful for the birch providing its sap, for the warm sun.

 For the vista down that tricky trail, down to a lake that´s still a lake and not a dried-out crater.

 For the wonderful, beautiful stems of the birchwood grove.

 For my beaten and battered bike, so simple and yet so complex.

 For a cuppa tea in the warm sun.

 For the ants that show me that it is okay to take advantage of the good that nature has to offer.

 Even for that little bug.

For dry leaves that rustle in the wind.

...and a Chinese ************ of a ladybug.

 For beech sprouts, so delicious in a salad....

 ...sprouting their living green...

 from something moulded and dry.

This is spring. This is the wonder of spring.

 

Bad news today?

 

Rise like the birch sap. It is spring, the sun is warm. Get out and play in the leaves and scream your joy at the trees!