Why I Ride

So.  When I was little I was somewhat (ha!) horse crazy.  Yup, really.  I drew horses all the time, collected photos off the internet, cried while watching National Velvet, dreamed about riding them and I literally talked all the time about how I was going to get a horse.  One afternoon, I even embarked on building a fence to hold a horse in our backyard…with logs which I dragged from the woods.  Har har…suffice it to say it would not have held chickens, much less a horse.  Eventually, I realized my horse dream just wasn’t going to come true in the immediate future…sad reality. :(  I switched all of my energies to persuading my family to let me get dairy goats.  Unlike having a horse, they’ve actually given some back and I’ve been able to learn a lot the hard way (still learning) over the past 5 years of having them.

Unfortunately, despite their many good qualities, a dairy goat cannot exactly provide the thrill of riding with the wind in your face over hill and dale.  Something was still missing…

Enter the bicycle.

Honestly, the reason I bought a bike in the first place was simply because my sister did and we did everything together.  If she was going to ride, I was going to ride too. ;)  Of course, then I realized how fun it was!  And hey, now I *was* going at 20MPH through the countryside with the wind in my face!  I realized my old “horse” dream had come true…in a slightly different way.  And yes, the fact that the bike also gave me a workout did factor in too! ;)  But the real reason I ride is for the feeling of freedom and the ability to exult in God’s Creation—wind in my face!  Sometimes, it *is* muscle-burning, gut wrenching hard work but maxing out at close to 50MPH down a mountain (#Larch) is so spectacular.  Wind.  Speed. The world flashing by.  You go so fast tears come out the corner of your eyes.   

I could probably write more, but it’s an amazingly beautiful day out there.  I think I’ll go meet up with my sister for a ride…