City Lights

It's not often I keep my evening rides urban -- normally I'm one who likes to escape into the cooler, cleaner country air. However, the current bushfire situation in the Hinterland means that country air isn't so cool and clean at the moment, hence I headed south along the coastal strip to Point Danger. What can I say but what a night!

It was a roaring tailwind that greeted me initially, I was literally blown south toward Greenmount. Here, the views were/are stunning, and this photo really doesn't do it justice.



Of course, that meant a battle with a headwind on the way back, but this was the really enjoyable part. Once you warm to the task and start throwing yourself into the headwind, it has that extremely liberating "letting go" feeling that only comes in very special circumstances (riding in heavy rain can also create it). In the grim struggle with the wind, I just completely forget about my destination. The wind itself becomes the goal, measuring myself, testing myself, feeling my thighs tire, but not wanting to show any weakness.

Then toward the end, the grimness is replaced by arrogance, as I realise I've owned the wind totally. Now I'm sprinting just for the sheer hell of it -- and at the end, that combination of exhaustion and exilaration, the reason I do this on a Thursday evening when it would be just as easy to go to bed early instead.