Day 23: Cycling and C.S. Lewis

The ride today reminds of something C.S. Lewis wrote. He wrote about the spontaneous joy we often have for new endeavors. When that joy dies, as it must, there is an opportunity to learn to love.

Today I had an opportunity to learn to love this bike tour. There was not much occasion for spontaneous joy. The scenery was striking, but the roads were so bad that you had to stay focused on the tar in front of you. After a few minutes, tar loses its appeal.

The morning started well. I got in a pace line with some young speedsters and we knocked out 30 miles in 1 and 1/2 hours. After taking a coffee shop break I discovered that I could no longer keep up with them and went on my own.

That's when the ride got tedious. We spent most of the day on US-40, which was very busy and had a poor shoulder. As the day progressed, word came from the state police that we should stay off the white line. This instruction was difficult to keep. Utah puts rumble strips just outside the white line. There is very little room between the rumble strips and the white line, and the area outside the rumble strips was frequently narrow and often full of junk-the kind of junk that eats up tires.

So, I spent the day dodging rumble strips, steering between bits of wire, tire, and assorted metal objects. It didn't help matters any that the tar had a gravelly consistency, which makes for a bumpy ride. Add a hot sun and a headwind to the equation and it adds up to a very challenging day.

Nevertheless, I made it to Dinosaur, Colorado in good time, which was my goal for the day, since I wanted to see the fossil digs at the National Park and was told they were accessible from the Visitor Center. Unfortunately, the digs are in Utah and the Colorado site offers a 31 mile scenic drive. At least I got to sleep through a 10 minute video on the Park.

Thankfully, the showers were excellent and supper was delicious. My main gratitude for the day is that one of my fellow riders was not more seriously injured when his seat post broke and he fell off his bike doing 15 mph. He rolled across the center line, skinning his face, side, and leg. Providentially, there was no traffic going either direction, which didn't happen a lot that day. He called for the support vehicle, which took him to a bike shop where he got another seat post and continued his ride.

God's protecting mercies were evident in other ways. Noone was seriously injured, which is quite something when you have 144 bikers on a busy highway with irritable truckers, who want to claim the whole road for themselves.

So, even though there was not much spontaneous joy, this day was truly blessed!

There is something else, not connected with the bike ride that makes this day blessed. My son David celebrated his 24th birthday. The fact that he is a cancer survivor who has been remission for 5 years is a movement of God's providence that dwarfs any of the small irritations and difficulties that come my way.