Riding just to ride

You're all set, firmly mounted to your trusty steed and ready for the roads ahead.  Air pressure: check, saddle height: check, tools/snacks/water: check.  You're looking around now, its mid day and your alone with no agenda ahead of you other than to just ride somewhere.  No one thing dictates how, where or why you will go as you will.  You know its time now yet you hesitate.  Its just you and the path ahead, wherever that may be.  But where?

Aimlessly you ride with no end in sight; no particular destination or time to beat.  Strava off, power meter off and phone on silent.  Its strange; you cant seem to remember the last time this happened.  Really?  A ride for the sake of a ride?  Its been to long but that's ok because you're here now.

Inclination gravitates toward a steady pace as you begin riding along at a decent clip.  You're feeling a good tempo and it begins to take over.  Similar sights surround you as you pass familiar places while something catches your eye.  Its a new road, or at least to you it is.  As youto  decide make that turn into the unknown you are presented with a gentle grade that soon tapers into a daunting climb. You can only know what to expect so far as the eye can see; but its a windy one and your not so sure what you got yourself into here.  You're deep into this monument and somethings telling you to continue on.  Its beautiful, the scenery that loomed under your nose as you passed by many a time without every taking the care to experience this new adventure.  The road climbs and its steeped with texture; new smells and sights flooding your senses.  The not so manacured quality of the gravel, the fluctuating nature of the climb, the over abundance of plantmatter: all these things going through your head as you move along.

The pedals continue to turn and you move along enjoying the view as it passes you by.  You're asking yourself what your doing.  No intervals or technical training here, just a beautiful ride; that's right. 

At this point something interesting begins to happen.  Instead of upping the pace you slow down and spin a higher cadence.  What's the hurry after all, you can take this as quickly or slowly as you want; no negative repercussion awaits you. 

So here you are now just pedaling along simply because you can, because it feels good.  You're heart rate has climbed in direct proportion to the grade of the path and your legs have come alive at this point as the lactate acid begin to do its thing.  You're entire body is at work now helping guide you up this trek.  Its gratifying yet paradoxical; working hard to go nowhere in particular, for no particular reason other than to just do it.  What's the end gain here?  Its not like your walking away with anything.  Or are you? 
 

You're pace begins to slow now and you can see that its almost over as quickly as it began.  Did you see it?  That pocket of wild mushrooms on the side of that tree halfway up the climb?  Did you feel it?  What you must have sworn was the coolest summer breeze to have ever graced your sweating body.  Did you smell it?  They were a varietal of wild flowers that only express their nature at such elevation.  It was the essence of your existence all at your fingertips.  It was yours for the taking and the beauty is that it didn't have to end with the bike ride.  It only seemed to have started here as you began to focus your efforts inward simply for the sake itself.  You tried to unplug so as to come back to a place of receptivity; a place where you could be alive for things as they were immediately happening as opposed to conceptualizing the unknown variables that might dictate the rest of your week. You turned down that road because you didn't know what to expect or where it would go.  It was one of the most symbolic and brave things you've done in a long while. 

It was beautiful, your journey into pure uncertainty.  Life exemplified simply through journey via landscape steeped in color and dimension; flavor of all variety.   You danced like you never quite had before in a  spontaneous and graceful child like fashion.  Will you take another turn like that sometime? 

I'm curious, aren't you?