Bike Tour Electrified

Europeans have been doing it for years. Now American are slowly starting to catch on. Years ago, when I lived in Copenhagen, it was one of the primary modes of transportation for just about everyone. Now Amsterdam and other European cities continue to vie for prominence with their focus on two-wheel transportation.

One of the unexpected but welcomed results of the Covid-19 pandemic was a surge in bicycle sales across the country. People rediscovered the joys and benefits of bike riding, touring, exploring, and commuting. It was almost as if a whole new generation had stumbled across this safe alternative to the car culture. It was an easy way to exercise and a great way to explore one’s neighborhood and community.

Now the evolution of the bicycle continues with the E (electronic) bicycle. New manufacturers have blossomed around the world to satisfy the tremendous desire of folks to go electric. I succumbed last summer with my own Aventon Level Two race car that can top out at 28 miles per hour. It is an absolute gas (no pun intended) to ride, cruise and power along.

Magazines and web sites that cater to the biking crowd have gotten very popular. Web communities like Cycle Chic, Copenhaganize, Citylab and Planetzien are among the many sites that carry biking-related articles. Bike sharing outlets like Minnesota’s own ‘Nice Ride’ are expanding their outreach efforts. Bicycle riding has been rediscovered all over again.

Heck, I knew that a lifetime ago. I got my first bicycle in fifth grade and I’ve been riding all my life. My first bicycle was a 100-pound land cruiser called a Huffy. It was clad in more metal than a Sherman Tank. In the end, I think riding that dead weight gave me the strength and endurance to run marathons later on in life. While all the other kids were darting around town in their light weight Schwinn bicycles, I was running over and crushing fixed objects with my mobile steamroller.

Fast forward ten-to-fifteen years and my first serious bicycle was a French-built Peugeot.  It was a ten-speed racing bike that, in fact, had a total of 15 different sprocket settings. After settling into my first job as a writer at the Minnesota Department of Health, I paid $115.00 for my new Peugeot at a bike shop in the East Village near the University of Minnesota.

Later that year, I rode my first Century on my Peugeot. In cycling lingo, a Century is a one-hundred-mile bike ride completed in one day. There were selected water stops along the way but it was still an out and back route that encompasses urban, suburban and rural roads.

I did the TRAM twice, the second time with Brian. TRAM stands for ‘The Ride Across Minnesota.’ It’s a five-day ride from one side of the state to the other, usually encompassing four hundred plus miles. Daily lengths vary but usually average between 70 and 80 miles per day.

My new Aventon E-bike now allows me easier peddling up hills and for longer distances while still enjoying the scenery around me. It’s been a blast to venture back out and explore old haunts along with new ones along the way.

As long as I can keep my balance and the old legs and back don’t give out, I intend to keep pushing along and enjoying the scenery along the way. Just like when I was a kid.

Rock the Tree (of Life)

Never one to back down from an idea that has penetrated my consciousness, I now find myself toying with a new storyline centered around religion. It’s a tale of lost love, religion dismissed and the vapid presence of God someplace in the background.

My relationship with God has always been tenuous at best. It’s now playing itself out in a new movie script concept that is slowly leaching out of my brain in the form of vapid scenes, running dialogue and undercurrents of love smashing up against ingrained religious belief.

Rock the Tree (of Life) is a story of finding, losing, and rediscovering God in a whole new form-I think.

My disillusionment with God, religion, heaven, hell, the afterlife and all things religious began in Eighth grade. After eight years of Catholic indoctrination at the hands of those daughters of Christ and men of the cloth, I finally hit a Catholic truth I couldn’t accept. It was simple enough; the fact that unless one is baptized as a Catholic, one couldn’t get into heaven. That simply didn’t jive with my immature brain that thought if God is all knowing and all great, he/she would never dismiss my friends as unworthy of heaven simply because their parents were of another religion.

Further study into many other Catholic doctrines I’d been taught and I was gradually finding myself falling away from the confinements of my mother’s religion. That lasted through high school and college and a good portion of my ‘lost years.’

There was a brief return to the church during the Sixties when my friend, Susan and I, discovered the Newman Center on the University of Minnesota campus and their semi-hippie approach to God and goodness and fellowship. That feeling of fellowship and community continued with intense debates and honest discussion amid pitchers of beer at the old Triangle Bar on the West Bank.

It also initiated a plethora of soul-searching in the form of poetry and song lyrics as I tried to examine what I was feeling at the time.  That brief return of examining my faith left with Susan when another phase of life called marriage began.

Years later, the subject matter reappeared in one of my first story forms of a play/movie/novel called ‘Cafeteria Catholic.’ The core element of the story is simple enough. A man, devoid of any faith, meets a woman who is a believer. The plot revolves around their newfound love for one another and the challenges of one believer connecting with a non-believer.

In truth, the core structure and plot elements of ‘Cafeteria Catholic’ are now morphing into a new storyline call ‘Rock the Tree’ with added conflicts and more layers of love added in. The background setting is different but the core conflict remains the same.

It’s not as if I don’t have enough to write already. There are two completed movie scripts that still need to get under Hollywood’s radar and a plethora of other projects screaming for my attention. Yet, this question of the existence of God and all of its surrounding baggage is a subject matter I find fascinating. Garnish it with the warmth and depth of true love and there is a story inside just waiting to get out.

I have no idea if I will even begin this new writing project this summer. Yet the ideas keep coming out and snap me to attention deep into the midnight hour. How can I ignore a storyline as strong as that?

 

Seeking Light Inside my Head

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting lately. Out West, it’s usually late at night after the sun has set and the mountains are outlined in gray and black. Back in Minnesota, it reverses itself and I find my reflective thoughts nudging out the bird songs and early morning dew on the grass.

What do I want to do with the rest of my life and is Eighty-One too late to start? Two questions with no concrete answers for either one. What I am sure of is that I’d rather be happy at the miles traveled rather than look back at the many stumbles encountered. It took me a lifetime to get here with no shortcuts but plenty of detours along the way. If one were to review the well over 600 blogs I’ve written, one would surely find a discernable pattern of reflective thoughts there. Over the years, I’ve discovered special spots here and there for those reflective thoughts.

One of my first places to take in the wonder of beauty around me was discovered while traversing one of the many steep switch-back mountain trails in my backyard. A flat rock, perfect for resting my backpack and tired limbs, gave me pause before continuing my climb to the top.

The panoramic views brought a state of enlightenment to my strenuous climbs and descents among the canyons and switch-backs that surround me here in the desert.

Nestled among the orange and lemon trees, two old worn out Adirondack chairs hid me from the golfers passing by and the birds romancing in the branches above. It’s a place to settle down with my coffee, tablet and open mind for the sights and sounds and smells that abound there. All of these quiet nature-made pews stimulate an appreciation for my life thus far. Of course, there are always mental nay-sayers along the way.

Unfortunately, what’s working against me is my German Catholic upbringing. Too much allegiance to the man of the cloth along with his sisters-in-kind. Their word was sacred and final and all too often wrong in all the right places. Emotions and feelings were a sign of weakness and our elders often preached that ‘children should be seen and not heard.’

What’s working in my favor is my German Catholic upbringing. There was always a focus on hard work, material sacrifice and a subtle but unmistakable desire to get ahead. Past generations would often describe it (and usually disparagingly) as ‘rising above your raisin.’ My mother led by example, not words or lectures. It was a subtle message but well received by my sister and I.

What I’ve stumbled across in my old age (relatively speaking) is the ability to see my luck (through the fog of daily life) in whom I married, my kids, and my grandkids. If there is a legacy to be left behind, I guess they’re mine.

I’ve been most fortunate with my health, managing my cerebral curiosity and how I’ve chosen to live my life on a daily basis. There’s been a real outburst of writing projects over the last several years that has surprised even me.

            Trying to write music for several of my plays.

            Getting my plays produced beyond the five already there.

            Getting my children’s book ‘Waleed, the Skinny Hippo’ in front of more kids.

            Exploring the idea of a graphic novel for ‘Sweetpea & the Gang.’

            Marketing two movie scripts to the right contacts in Hollywood.

            Toying with the idea of a concept album of my own music.

At this stage of the game, the one and only truth that counts for me is simply that: Health is Wealth. I’ve been incredibly lucky thus far.

Leaving the comfort of home for the rough, unknown of a mountain trek opens one up for all kinds of cerebral explorations. Early morning or late-night rendezvous with nature does the same trick with your head. It all comes down to not knowing what you’ll find and not caring. Just enjoying the serenity and peace and calm of mother nature. And luckily reflecting on a life well-lived.