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Commute - 20090402 My instincts regarding passable terrain have rarely failed me, inasmuch as I've rarely turned around. Dragging my bicycle through the thorny plains north of home, stopping once a minute to clear the mire from the calipers, I eventually decide carrying it would be better. The barbed wire fences look pretty harmless until you get close. The cops' shooting range (bridge to the only passage out) is fortuitously uninhabited, but (atop a hill with so many fences) roundly inaccessible. The road is a mile away, almost visible, between it and me a hollow that dips 50ft or so. The air is sneaking below 32f as my mud-based thermal cloak begins to harden. The descent is mellow enough. Once fence. More bones down here, big ribs, must've been a wooly mammoth. Across the valley floor, over and under two more fences, now standing, neck craned to survey the way up. Fuck this shit. The first trial is a moat, half frozen, cat tails and choke cherries, five resigned paces. Feet are now soaked but at least I didn't fall down. The second trial is a bramble patch, an insidious mess 10ft deep and 6ft up, extending to infinity in both directions. I try to lob the bike clear that I might chop through uninhibited, but it comes to a spongy rest atop like it's jumping into bed. God's green earth has its way with me. The third trial is an icy slope, to be several times scrambled up and slid back down. There is no footing to be had here. For the first time in two hours the bicycle is of use, this time as a ladder, hooked to a distant shrub. One more fence to freedom. comments... |
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