Poem For A Rider

Poem For A Rider
Originally uploaded by jpete

Last year our ride coordinator, Rebecca, read a poem that was sent by a supporter. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the first couple lines of the poem on the video but Rebecca supplied the full text.

Tap into your inner cycle monkey;
your inner churning, grinding, hammering steam engine of pure forward momentum;
your bike zombie of destruction.
Tap into the smoldering asphalt smoker and leave more road behind you than ahead of you.
Make your feet go around in circles more happily each minute,
and more efficiently each revolution.
Enjoy the unhindered view as you swing your gaze from apex of the sky, to the ground right in front of your wheel, back up on the other side all the way back to the top of the sky.
No blind spot.

Appreciate the cute ass of some other rider.
Laugh over something totally trivial and totally hilarious with a stranger or new friend.
Love the blisters.
Pretend each small thing you see is an omen of some coming calamity or windfall.
Make up hobo names for all your friends
except me, since I already have a hobo name - Bigfoot Yancey.
Take the hours on the bike as an opportunity to relearn that joy comes from gratitude,
not the other way around.
--Monkeyhead