I have been blessed to have several long rides lately, long in time, not necessarily always in miles, as some roads were slow going. I can honestly say I’ve learned new skills and gotten some good practice on some older skills as well. I’ve started to write this a few times, but something kept coming up that prevented me from finishing.
Sometimes my thoughts are started on the rides then continue later on before I finally get it all written down. Life will happen and I’ll think back about the rides and it will trigger more thoughts to share, ramblings that is. One specific ride that got me thinking was this past weekend. I actually thought ahead a little bit about a new route I wanted to try. I even looked at a map ahead of time to get an idea of where I needed to turn and roads I wanted to go on.
At first the ride was very calm and relaxing, it was not a real busy road and there was shade along the route. Then all of a sudden it seemed, there were vehicles coming up behind me that seemed to be in much more of a hurry than I was. One thing I’ve learned from day one on the bike is to ride my ride. My hubby always said, “If they dont want to follow you they can pass, you have as much right on the road as they do.” Now mind you I was not going slow, I was staying within 5 miles of the speed limit. There were a few times where I saw a passing zone ahead and actually slowed a little so it would be easier for them to go ahead and pass. Well guess what, they didn’t pass. So I just kept riding my ride, you never want to force yourself to ride above your abilities or confidence level on a bike. You’ve only got 2 wheels and therefore a lot less contact with the road than in a car or truck. You need to know that you have control, no matter what other drivers may think.
Finally after about 15-20 minutes of following me, the 2 oversized tire pickup trucks went on by me. Now I was back to nobody behind me, my preferred way to ride in the country. I began to start watching for road signs. I had 2 specific roads I was considering taking depending on how they looked when I got there. Well apparently in this particular county they prefer to either not put up road signs at all or to just put #s on the signs, not the names used on the map. I decided I had gone further than what should have been needed for either road and knew I did not want to go where this road was headed so I found a safe place to pull over and stopped to look at the map on my phone again before turning around. All I saw was road names, not numbers, so I just headed back the direction I came and decided I’d pick a road that I thought might be one of them.
Fortunately, I do have a pretty decent sense of direction so I knew I could find my way regardless of whether I found the road I wanted or not. I chose a road that was headed the basic direction I wanted to go. Let me just go ahead and tell you now it most definitely was NOT either of the roads I’d picked out on the map. The further I went on this road the narrower and rougher it got. It was still a paved road but it was definitely not well maintained. I came across a sign that showed a cow crossing ahead. My kind of country!! There were cows all along this route and the trees and hills and overall landscape reminded me more of the hometown where I grew up in N.H. than any place I’ve been in years!
The road seemed more like a wide cattle trail than it did a road for daily use. I saw a school bus stop sign and thought to myself there’s no way I would want to drive a school bus on it. This road was probably the windiest (curvy not windy) road I’ve been on so far on my bike. I was very thankful I was on this bike, and not my previous one which was very top heavy. I was appreciative of the low center of gravity my bike has as well as the comfy seat, especially with my sheepskin buttpad added. As I rode and looked at the winding road, the beautiful trees and hills, the streams, all the cows along the way, and smelled that wonderful country smell it was so comforting. It brought back memories of a farm in my hometown where we used to have to follow the cows walking down the main road headed from their pasture to the barn to be milked. You did not try to rush them or drive in between them. You patiently drove along behind until they decided to get out of the road. There were times traffic was stopped in both directions for them to go their own way.
I also came to a one lane bridge on this road that went over a river that was not very deep due to the lack of rain we’ve recently had. This too brought back memories as I saw there were some teens down in the water wading and playing in the water. We used to often go to places like this when I was a teen to swim and ride the water down the slippery rocks into a cool pool of water that was actually quite deep and over my head in places so you needed to know how to swim to go down them, or at least how to tread water and get to the shallow area.
This road I was on was so worth it regardless of the challenges. Don’t get me wrong I’ll admit I had a death grip on the handlebars at least once and there was no chance of speeding thru this adventure. It was nerve racking a few times but now that I’ve done it I will be going back to do it again. The next time I will know what to expect. Sometimes in life when we’re forced to push the limits we realize we can do things we didn’t think we could. Sometimes we have to be forced out of our comfort zone in order to grow and experience new things. Just as quickly as the road got narrow and rough, it then opened up and was normal width and much smoother pavement again.
In life we may experience rough stormy times, but better times also come. God never promised us an easy storm free life, but He does promise He will be with us through them.
Isaiah 41:10 and 43:5 both begin with “Fear not, for I am with you.”
No matter if we are on a bumpy road now, or a smooth one, He is with us just the same, so push those limits and enjoy the ride!
Ramblings of a Christian Grandma Biker 