Monday Blues: Thinking About that Road

 It was eight-thirty and already eighty-five degrees. The forward face of the moon, caught out after sunrise was displaying all the early warning signs of heat exhaustion. Looking left and right along the streets of the neighborhood it seemed you could sure tell who was complying with the water restrictions, and who wasn't, the one green lawn sticking out like a red nose at a party of tea-totalers. Finally arriving at the dirt, that sharply defined edge where the Out There begins, I followed a set of knobby prints, freshly laid in the dust of the opening section of single track. I pictured them being laid down by that rider on a yellow Lapierre I had seen making a final bombing run down Mills just a few moments earlier.

There didn't seem to be too much life in the Out There on this day, a lone crow, a couple gravel riders, a man with two dogs, neither of which seemed to mind that it was hot and only getting more so. Some of those small white butterflies flitted about like they always do, but the tarantula hawks which appeared to be in the midst of a local population explosion along the Heights a week ago, were completely absent today. A pair of doves surprised me when, rather than beat their wings against the hot air, they noisily ran up a slope covered in dry leafy detritus at my right hand.

Arriving at Cucamonga Canyon, I exchanged greetings with those couple gravel riders, watched them ride away, then hopped the gate to continue up the single track to the overlook spot. I thought about the road "gently" riding up the distant hillside. I thought about how deceptively easy it appeared from here. I looked beyond where it first disappeared behind a ridge and saw it continuing upslope on a mountain fold further beyond. I thought about how that road would abruptly turn to trail, the native vegetation crowding in on anyone venturing along as it traced a line toward ever more rocky heights. It has been two years now since last I rode up that way, time enough to forget about the unrelenting gradient of the climb and all it entails. I thought I would like to do that ride again.

A little green native bee buzzed around in front of my face, as if intentionally attempting to distract me. Absently waving a gloved hand at it, I hit myself in the nose and that seemed to wake me out of a reverie. Blinking I shook my head and threw off droplets of sweat. The sun beat down and I turned away from it, noticing that the moon had now completely melted from the sky. I turned back again to the canyon and thought I would like to ride that road again. Yeah, give it another four months and it might be cool enough to do so.