The Perfect Ride

I showed up at Scooter’s house the other night seething with poison because of something completely unrelated to him. I pulled my bike from my rack and said little more than this:

“I had a bad day. I need to ride and say nothing. Could we ride to beer?”

He gave me a quick sideways glance, hopped on his bike, said, “Woodward?”

And that was that. We rode.

After a few miles I discovered my legs and he allowed me to bitch a few minutes. We rode some more, talked about birds, laughed at each other, discussed the stench from the flood and the fancy new road outside Madrid, his day, mine. Mostly though, we just pedaled.

Eventually we wound up in Woodward at Mr. C’s, swapped stories with the locals, shared a grinder and pedaled home. I appreciate a million little things about Scooter every day; but that night all these little things coalesced for me in the most amazing, beautiful, grand epiphany. His sideways glance, listening, laughter, our shared silence, the ride there and back, food, the climbs, drink, the deer in the road and an omniscient understanding of the other that only comes from fifteen plus years of compounding adventures—that’s a perfect ride. With perfect company.