Pedaling West

I have learned, through much experience, how to ride a bicycle. And although I ride expertly, folks turn with skeptic grins. They say that I exaggerate, delude myself and wish, when I calmly claim that bike and I have thirty thousand miles. But they don’t know the twisted hill, where halfway up three thousand feet, I settle in a calm and happy pant, churning in assurance that this one thing I ace. This summer I shall ride, if all goes well, from coast to coast on country roads, four thousand miles across and twenty up and down, camping if required, indulging as the route allows. If it were for future glory or respect or fame, I’d fear the ones who lurk— the rattlesnake, the rapist, the drunken coal-truck driver on a thin Kentucky turn. But having lived and died already, there remains the easy life— pedals pushed, miles behind, unknowns along the way.