12.2

I have 64 days to get ready to ride the Wild Goose Chase. This is a one-day all-women bike ride in and around Blackwater Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County, Maryland.


Getting ready to ride the Seagull Century in 2009.

I got the cycling bug last year, when my friend, Anna, invited me to train with her to ride in the Seagull Century. For those of you who don’t speak cycling-ese, a century is a 100-mile bike ride. Before you get too impressed, there is also something called the metric century, which is 100 kilometers or 64 miles. I am a metric century cyclist. Or at least I was once last October. This year, I am training for a repeat of that distance when I ride the Wild Goose Chase on October 17. [Check out this fundraiser for the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge at http://www.terrybicycles.com/tours.]

I don’t brag about my riding stats. Between the heat and travel and just plain procrastination, my weekday morning rides have been a toodle this summer, averaging 15-16 miles. On Saturday morning, I have been gradually building my endurance so that I can actually walk without too much groaning after a 30-mile ride.

If you are impressed by my commitment to distance, do not put me on a pedestal quite yet. Another aspect of cycling is speed. I am a slow and steady cyclist. No matter how hard I push myself, my average is a modest 12.2 miles per hour. I’m not breaking any records. But I am having fun and testing my commitment to something other than red wine and Ben and Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide.

I wrote this poem to make peace with my average riding speed and to remind myself that sometimes being good enough is good enough



12.2

No matter how fast I pedal
I average 12.2 miles per hour.

Even when I push myself
spinning the wheels to 14, 15, 16 mph,
by the end of the ride
the bike computer registers an average speed of 12.2.

When I pump like hell
down a sloping country road,
and the speedometer peaks at a respectable 19 mph,
I end the ride with a score of 12.2.

With the wind at my back, my average never waivers.
Even with a boost from drafting the tail of a pace line
I still clock a modest 12.2.

When I end my days
and St. Peter tallies my good deeds and gaffs,
I hope I get a seat with the other average riders,
the ones, like me, who tried like the devil to be the best,
and ended the ride only to find that all it took
to get from birth to death
was to be good enough.