Le Mistral

I have only one time ever in my whole life played a video game. It was called “frogger” and consisted of something like frogs quickly jumping from one log to the next. I got so excited and in that excitement was such a huge motherly embarrassment to my then little boys, that I have never played another.

I can’t say that I have ever even seen a game boy toy or a Nintendo and know absolutely nothing about Wii, except that you do it in front of a TV. When someone asked a year or so ago if I knew what guitar hero was, I told them the Edge from U2 was mine.

I grew up in the days of pinball machines. This afternoon on the bike trail I felt like, nothing less than a character in a modern day video game or the little ball that gets wildly knocked around every which way, like a zillion decades ago, in the local bowling alley pin ball machine. The wind situation on the trail is at times a little intense. At one point I am sailing along so fast and effortlessly that I look down and check my chain to see if my bike is in the big gear I think it is. Then no sooner do I get the idea to take advantage of the easy speed and do some sprints when a powerball gust of wind knocks me head on forcing an immediate opposite response where climbing the littlest hills feels like I am riding the last 10 kilometers of Mount Ventoux, a difficult windy and steep stage of the Tour de France.

And so the afternoon ride home goes.

On our trail you never know. One mile you can be hurried along by a tail wind, the next find yourself with quads on fire fighting through a strong head wind and then after riding a couple more encounter those somewhat balance challenging crazy cross winds. Or so I think. I am not a wind expert, nor am I a great cyclists. But I do ride every chance I get and through many different elements. On days like today I image myself a little pawn in the great big universe, a little video game character getting tossed this way and that, doing my best, determined to make my way home.

I figure I am so lucky to be able to ride. The wind just a microcosim of the rest of my life’s daily challenges. What do they say of this month anyway - “in like a lion, out like a lamb” ?

One can be hopeful. Spring is right around the corner.