Giving Thanks

It's Thanksgiving and I give thanks to the wheel that only broke half its spokes on the drive side (6) and cracked the inside race of the bearing (if the wheel had collapsed it would not be pretty); vxb.com a wonderful clear, easy-to-navigate bearing website that is providing me with a replacement bearing (aka steel wheels separated by steel balls-ceramic if you want to spring for it); the 20" wheel that transformed a tippy too-tall recumbent into a speed machine with a great aero profile of a long thin wedge; the trash wheel whose axle bearings were so notchy it felt like there were a couple of boulders in the races transformed by replacement bearings; the wheels on all my bikes that spin pretty well and get me to work on time; the wheel that creates dichroic emanations that improve my brain functions (patent pending); the pawn idler wheels whose existence is largely unseen and anonymous but also vital demonstratable when a bent arm derails the chain; what of the repetition of the wheel's cycle itself as I go to work or go home or go shopping on my heavy hauler?; and thanks to the eight fold path (represented by a wheel) to follow; the wheel of the seasons as one day fuses into another with changes but discrete; the wheel of the stars at night so slowly turning it might seem still but for the passage of dark (and the dark within each of us) itself; and thanks to the endless cycle of birth and death, relief for endings and joyful opportunities but how it is seen is in the personal and specific.

Flow

Blockage and flow; flow and blockage. Cycling is flow. At its best one set of thoughts follow the incline and decline of the route, tangible through pedal effort or coasting and none. Potholes, a single rock sent skidding sideways as my front tire catches an edge, cracks spreading as fall pulls the road apart a bit pose a danger but mostly flow. Flow makes possible a second set of thoughts: how will I pitch the "chat" to the girl whose work I found in the trash without her name or section but insisted I had collected it?, and what of the meeting canceled 20 minutes before its scheduled start, what's up with that? Yes, it's the many "What's up with that?" that don't go anywhere and don't need to go anywhere, they are just to consider. Mostly it's seamless, back and forth, a rock and a thought, and traffic and "what about?".
Friday afternoon, halfway home and the dreaded "sssssss"sound, spongy tire, wiggly steering: a flat. I push the bike off into a wooded hollow with a blanket of leaves not wet sponges from the afternoon but more like a pool deck, warm and pleasant. I can't find the leak in the inner tube and feel no tell tale sharp tooth of metal or glass on the inside of the tire. The outside is wet and impossible to find the most likely culprit: a glass shard the size of a pencil point. Blockage. I have my front wheel taken apart, I am captive for 15 minutes in a ten foot circle I am sharing with a rusty culvert and the clock is ticking. With the bike back together my flow is short lived: another flat. Mostly likely I did not find the original problem and here it is reminding me of its existence in the universe. Brilliant. I start walking. I am feeling too green to use my aerosol-punch-a-hole-in-the-ozone-for-my-personal-convenience, too discouraged to take the tire apart for the third time and in no need to be anywhere anytime soon. I walk and am invisible. A bicyclist walking a bike is no longer a part of the flow of traffic and not a pedestrian going about his business. I get tired of walking and where the road is nearly level I start pedaling. I can feel the stem on its cyclic rotation making contact with the street marking with a steady beat my rhythmic progress. The tire complains with its warbly sound and the rim is afraid for its life cautioning me to slow down for holes and cobbles. I am just hoping I don't ruin the tire, ruin the rim or get dumped from the bike as the tire falls off the rim. It's getting dark and if the wheel needs to fall on its sword, so be it. And then I am home. My one hour commute takes two. The house is dark and no one is waiting. Blockage and flow; flow and blockage