A Tale of Three Unremarkable Rides

This past weekend, I rode three times in three days. Although none of my rides was particularly noteworthy, I reached a noteworthy milestone.

Ride 1, on early Friday evening, was ridden in perfect riding conditions, with temperatures in the low 80s and light winds. I traveled a little over 23 miles through the villages of Bartlett, Hanover Park, Schaumburg, and Roselle. In so doing, I discovered another route that allows me to cross the Milwaukee West railroad tracks without having to share a major thoroughfare with rush hour drivers -- the Hanover Park Metra station. Understandably, city planners and railroad companies plan villages so that only major roads (which are usually bicycle unfriendly) have crossings. Thank God for Metra stations; three of the four safe pathways from the region "south of the tracks" (where I live) to the bicycle-friendly region to the north are the Roselle, Schaumburg, and Hanover Park Metra stations.

The next morning -- Saturday -- was a few degrees warmer, but considerably more humid. Ride 2 carried me through Schaumburg and Roselle, resting for a brief time at the bike-friendly Metra stations in each of these villages. I rode 18.3 miles and finished my ride as the summer sun reached the meridian. In retrospect, I should have forced myself to start my ride earlier. It was uncomfortably hot by ride's end, and the fact that I ran out of water certainly didn't help.

A cold front swept through the area late Saturday night, bringing rain, a slight drop in temperature, and (more importantly) a significant drop in humidity. As a result, my Sunday ride was much more comfortable, with one exception -- the wind. Earlier this year -- in the spring -- the rare warm day was accompanied by stiff southerly winds. I grew to dislike the wind, despite the fact that I knew that their existence was the very reason it was warm. Now, the winds were back, but there were westerly now and considerably warmer. On this day, whenever I traveled west, it felt like I was perpetually riding uphill. When I was eastbound, I felt like Superman. Starting my ride in mid-afternoon, my ride was a modest 16.9 miles in length.

Although none of these rides exceeded 25 miles and my total mileage for all three rides was only 58.5 miles, it still pushed me above the 500 mile mark for 2009.

Feeling philosophical, I liken these three unremarkable rides to the individual days of our lives, which are often similarly unremarkable. Despite this, each person's collection of unremarkable days often accumulate to create very remarkable lives. Throughout our vast universe are similar instances when the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. They call this synergy. With that in mind, I continue to pedal onward and upward, toward a greater goal that adds my modest effort to the efforts of countless other people who work tirelessly to end the scourge of cancer. By so doing, we make a difference, thereby illuminating the better angels of our nature.