Listen...

I'm listening to Sarah Vaughn sing "If Love is Good to Me". Just back through the door from walking my dog. Thirty-four degrees, saw my frosty breath and such an immense, deep, black night sky spattered with stars and silence. The wind died. The wood stove is so warm on my right side. It is fully chest-out winter now.

I rode 32 miles this afternoon with two of my cycling "daddies"---mentors. Patiently they've taught me the fine points. "Daddies" or "daddy" in carpentry is what you call the person who taught you the craft---framing, trim, or whatever. I like folky names like this born of oral tradition, passed along inside the culture of such a craft or trade. For me it has a place in other pastimes. It is transferable. It fits cycling well I think.

We rode from First Street in Kill Devil Hills to Coquina Beach ranger housing/campground where the ocean grinds away right on the other side of the dunes. The northwest wind pushed us hard over our right shoulders. It blew around 24 mph while we rode in virtual silence, the silence seeming to ride with us as if ours alone. When this happens it is certain we will pay the price for such speed, such an unweighted ride when we turned back into the teeth of the dragon. A rider can't keep this out of his head. It's just like riding in the mountains enjoying a plummeting descent knowing full well the longer and steeper you drop, the bigger and more tortuous will be the climb back up out of the abyss whose bottom you will find.

This is one of my favorite steady state, uninterrupted rides. But today I have teammates to share the work into the wind all the way home. They are on fixed gear bikes, I on the small chainring while healing my left knee.

Now it's Ella Fitzgerald, "I've Got a Crush on You". What a fine voice. What a natural treasure. Listen...