Yes, I love to bike.  I found cycling after I turned 50 and knew my knees and back would not tolerate basketball much longer.  The speed of a bike, the thrill of a chase, boomerang curves, burning thighs, the benefit of teammates–all recall the key sensations of basketball for me.

I once picked up a dead bird, a sparrow that had smashed into a window thinking it was swooping into endless sky.  It was so frail and light it seemed almost weightless.  How could something so elegant and capable in air be so delicate in matter?  They say birds have hollow bones, and their skeletons weigh less than their feathers…..

A bird in flight captures the marvel of a bike to me–a light hollow carbon frame with thin tires and invisible spokes and glinting drive chain, gliding down smooth roads, animated by a human heartbeat.  It’s a sparrow sailing across the infinite sky.

And that, I suspect, is the true reason I find so much pleasure on a bike.  As a middle-aged man–ok, maybe even a “senior”–one is only too aware of the slow attrition of power, strength, mental quickness, work ability, eyesight and other such deteriorations of long life.  A bike restores some of what’s being lost.  It’s a miracle of engineering.  Can you think of a more perfect way to leverage human muscle into lightness and speed?

Which leads us to the cyclist’s prayer:  may life keep us in the illusion of the infinite sky…and away from that window!