Riding Like the Wind
The roads leading away from Denver dwindle quickly at their northern extremities, but I know how to streamline travel.
Crossing the 645 miles to Livingston ahead of schedule means time can begin to relax. So I park the Jeep at the edge of town,
and climb out to check that the rear bike rack has weathered the trip securely. My sleek chestnut Bianchi nuzzles me and I pat
the ready saddle.
Wandering down to the banks of the Yellowstone River in the late stretching afternoon, I settle into the shaggy grass to
watch the slanted sunlight sparkle the silvery water. A welcoming breeze tousles my hair, coaxing me to exhale. I remove my
watch, put away my money and my keys, and lie back in the lengthening shadows to rest and wait for the others. In these
equalizing days of September, I am about to join nine other women and nine other bicycles touring Montana back roads under a
sprawl of gaping skies.
On our first morning, the southern sky is unlocked and doodling vapor trails. The company of riders tweedles and dawdles
and at last embarks, each rider finding her own easygoing pace. As I try to gauge my measure, I hear humming between the
turning wheels and the wind: "Are you ready?" she intones, "ready, ready, are you?" sung in iambic
pentameter. "Yes," I am breathing, "yes I am, yes" even though I seem to be pushing against myself.
I lean forward slightly, grumbling in my mind at the suggestion of a headwind, which becomes only more forceful in the
exertive afternoon. "Let go," she murmurs in the last few strenuous miles, "go, letting go, go ahead." By
the time I stop pedaling that day, I have the weary idea that I am towing extra weight.
The wind seems playful on the second morning, like a puppy jumping UP and down,
mischievous-curious-endlessly-awake-suddenly-sleeping-utterly-present. While the drowsy vista yawns at our cycling
convoy, the tempo starts circulating in my body as my thoughts are spreading out. Somewhere in the valley that opens up
just after Yankee Jim canyon, her voice sounds roguish in my ear: "I shall steal your direction." So I stop at
the river, wading into swirling eddies to assure myself which way the current flows, only to find the reflections all turned
around. I have to fling rocks across the surface just to break the reverie. At some point the road resumes, and I become
nearly italic as the crosswind romps in the warm afternoon, frisking its tail. "Your stubbornness is mine too," she
chortles. By then I am sweating in my efforts to resist even as I realize that I have forgotten many labored thoughts back at
the river. When we arrive at the historic stone gates to Yellowstone, flags flapping stoutly in the blustering tides, I subside
voluntarily, glad to share a chocolate milk shake with the smiling guide.
With the night moon full, dreams of boiling rivers and howling rhapsodies churn as I toss and turn my way into a
morning hanging heavy with mammary clouds. Today the van ferries us around scenic detours but all I can see is my
breath fogging the window. At the Lower Falls, I long after the osprey with soaring wingspan as it glides over outlying
crevices, and in the closeness of Old Faithful, the hot and hissing, spewing eruption lifts and drifts across the horizon
until I want to lick my fingers. Feeling feverish, I have to excuse myself from the group, pedaling away at a gallop.
In due time, a shadowy coyote darts from the corner of my eye across the road, glancing sideways at my bicycle and tossing
a wink. Easily beguiled, I follow suit, turning westerly with carnal reflex. But then the wind balks, straddling the edges of
breathless terrain. I have been riding through a blackened forest boneyard, the charred remains of firestorms that burned out
of control for as long as the wind kept blowing, unstoppable in its effusion. The flames still echo as a downdraft whiffles the
ashes. "You must give up your desire," she enjoins me. I ride for a long way ruminating. As I approach the gently
lapping lake where we’ll spend the night, I am verging on doldrums. "I will have no illusions left," I hear myself
say. The sunset reverberates in stillness when she replies, "I know."
Throughout the night the wind wails and rain drums the roof muffling my prayers for clemency. I don’t want to stop now, not now.
In the overcast morning, I am uncertain about going on but my companions show no hesitance. Wishing to seem fearless, I
cloak myself in black layers so I can travel unnoticed through the cold surrounding. But my heart rattles as I approach Quake
Lake in the mist, startling ghostly waterfowl to rise en masse from charcoal perches and beat the air in disrupted waves. The
wet wind blares through my helmet until I can hardly hear myself questioning the course. "Limitations will get you
nowhere," she chides, and for a heartbeat I feel my balance careening. "Will you trust? Will you? Now, right now?"
My defenses are melting in the dappled fog and not knowing any better, I concede. With dimmed awareness my autonomy blurs, lifting
effortlessly, fluidly, carried by the tailwind over unmeasured miles until I am no longer steering, shifting, pedaling, but I must
have propelled somehow because when time finally returns, I seem to be where I belong among friends. I check all around my bike
for anything that resembles wings, but for an animated aura in the mirror there is nothing noticeably different.
As the last day rolls over groggy, morning peers through louvers of shuttered light. Turning our attention north, the end
of the journey lies just beyond the steeply graded hills and their garb of grandeur. No one can be a tourist now. So
with each downshifting gear, I gradually invert. The task is simple at first: solid torso, controlled breathing, full,
fluid pedal orbit, relaxed centering mantra. For a while, I am connected, strong and confident. But when I look up, the
mountain seems unmoved and remains looming as the sweat on my face trickles. I reach for my concentration, but instead I
seem to backpedal in stammering speculation. The strain begins in earnest, and gasping ensues as the front wheel sidetracks
off the shoulder in the skidding momentum. Even without looking up, the cliff is still inclining and now, with or without
logic, my leg muscles threaten combustion. Absorbed in such endless vertical mirage, I almost don’t realize when the pass
arrives. One by one surmounting the crest, each rider waves feebly, muted and weightless in the quivering lull.
After that, the change is not entirely unexpected, but it is sudden. Coming down off the pass and into the flats, headlong
gusts lunge from the sky like a screaming raptor. The slamming gales rip through my frame from every direction, daring my
instincts to cling on to the buck of power unleashing. "This isn’t fair," I shout into the freezing whirlwind
blasts that douse my measly voice with savage force. By now her squall is deafening, "I am the tempest, the mystery
not to be denied, the wild and sacred surrender to passion. Whatever you believe, you are no longer."
I don’t remember the moment exactly, turning immediate, becoming primal. Forereaching into the canyon headwind with
everything I have, my skin dissolves. What remains, releases:
blood and bone and muscle devoid of experience or knowledge or memory, a consciousness comprising only entirety and perpetual
cadence. In the end I simply close my eyes, free-falling through the membrane. As electrified presence ignites in my lungs,
a whispering touch vibrates pleased and soothing: "You are home." And so suspended in seeming aftertime, I inherit
the power to cry like driving rain. Eventually the van finds me, the last drenched and shivering rider to be ferried to the hot
springs. Somehow the exhausted hours all begin melting into myriad stories gathered around a candlelit table of savory food and
women’s comfortable laughter.
Having slept soundly in a blanket of farewells, I wake wholehearted before dawn and take my leave driving east. As liquid light
seeps across the contours of landscape, I glance in the rear-view mirror. For a moment I think I see the silhouette of turning
wheels, and then I notice that the mountains are shimmering under a gauze of powdered snow. The wind hovers, fluting visibly in
the crystal air. And just like that, the seasons change.
Copyright © 2007 by Mary Ann Schaefer
All work owned by individual author and should not be reproduced without permission.
