Really Deep Thoughts – Rocky Mountain Biker

Over the Mountains

In 2018, I wrote an article about riding the Colorado Trail for Elevation Outdoors. You can find it here.

This is an unusual sight. I’m sitting in a bustling Starbucks by I-25 and out the window a bunny rabbit just hopped across the patio. And now I can’t see him any more. A few weeks ago I rode up the Apex trail in the wind and got something in my eye and all nightContinue reading “Highly Irregular”

Spring and Robert Lowell

Ah, Spring! Lovely warm, green, vibrant spring. I’m very glad that the earth, as it always does, has swung back around and our hemisphere has begun to lean again toward the sun, bringing us the myriad lessons of rebirth. And yes, a rebirth of riding, too, since I rode very little this winter. There wereContinue reading “Spring and Robert Lowell”

What I’ve Been Up To

I’ve been up to lots, but not riding much. Here’s an attempt to give you a visual sense of what I’ve been working on, thinking about, and obsessing over, lately. Amen, brother. Tonight is Daylight Savings, and I’m so ready to get out there. In the meantime, I’ve been squirreled away in the basement, ridingContinue reading “What I’ve Been Up To”

Yoga Christmas, With Sloth

It’s December, which means that it’s the time of the year where I totally feel like a fat, lazy, bland slob. I’ve been eating too much chocolate, too many cookies. And not working out at all. I’m reminded of my undergrad lit teacher, quoting Sloth, one of the seven deadly sins, in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus:Continue reading “Yoga Christmas, With Sloth”

Cold, With Swan

I just finished up teaching a class on Mary Oliver, who is one of a handful of poets who make a living from writing. Her work is spare, simple, and melodic. Like another handful of poets, I’d say that she’s as much a philosopher as a poet, and therefore her work is primarily natural andContinue reading “Cold, With Swan”

Friends and Fourteeners

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not justContinue reading “Friends and Fourteeners”

There Have Been Years

Every year I get to spend a week up in Grand Lake, Colorado, on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. And every year I sojourn back to two trails I like very much: the Grand Lake Metropolitan trail network, and the Gilsonite to Wolverine Trail, which courses through the remote Arapaho National forest. OneContinue reading “There Have Been Years”