My work commute is 40 miles. 30 by car or bus, 10 by bike. That is done for a while, and the “only” reason is fitness. I am very fit (for my age), but still very much over weight. I have no problm riding 50 or 60 miles. Playing racquetball, or taking long hikes. To fix the weight I needed up really “up” my physical activity. Racquetball and kick boxing classes have taken over biking for fitness.

I still bike to the gym, the store etc., but the two hour daily commute rides are out the window, so to speak, till at least springtime.

By then, a midnight rider could be out of the obese categorey (those 30+ lbs over weight), and maybe, just maybe, into the svelt gang.

I am a first time commenter here, so I hope this is in keeping with the character of this site. I am also primarily an XC mountain biker, not a commuter. That said, here is an excerpt from what I have been writing…

When I am mountain biking, I usually go alone – on purpose. I like biking with buddies, but I like it even more by myself. Not the safest practice, I realize, but the most cerebral, the most spiritual.

Sometimes in the woods, I am actually able to capture a few minutes when I cannot hear a car, a Harley, a commercial jet, a sub-woofer, a lawnmower, or a dog barking. But what I can hear is the wind in the trees, the water spilling over the rocks in the creek, chipmunks skirting around underneath the leaves, dead tree trunks creaking against each other when the wind pushes on them, acorns falling, an owl. I think to myself, “This must be how the native Americans heard the woods as they explored them.” No wonder they revere the earth so.

I love, while riding, to stop at a big boulder, climb up on it, pull out my thermos and sip a cup of hot coffee or tea – even on a scorching hot day. I sit, and listen. Once I was doing this when I suddenly heard a large “woosh” sound, like someone swinging a tennis racket through the air. It was a couple of large birds – probably vultures of some type – taking off from a rock below me. Huge birds with wing spans approaching four feet.

I have also often heard – especially in hot weather – what at first sounds like a loud cricket. But it is too loud to be a cricket, and then it gets louder. I have come to realize now that when I hear this, I need to look around for an eastern timber rattler informing me that I am encroaching on his (or her) space and would be well-advised to back off a bit. Boy, am I glad rattlesnakes have rattles. Otherwise, I would not have seen most of these until I was right on top of them.

I have twice seen black bear where I ride. Both times, they ran away from me as soon as they realized I was there. Not much more I can say about the bears, except I guess I would rather have them run away from me than run toward me.

So, when I am biking in the woods I am in a world so very different from anywhere else. So natural, so clean, so unspoiled, so without worries. I always wish that I could stay there, but like Frost said so well, “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep; But I have promises to keep; And miles to go before I sleep; And miles to go before I sleep.”

Why do I mountain bike? To be in a different world. To feel free. To be cleansed. To hear the quiet.