Memories of Rides Past -- with apologies to Msr. Proust.

"We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full." Marcel Proust

No riding the past few days -- cold winds, rain, and even snow made it far too easy to find reasons or excuses to stay inside, though I have been regularly on the treadmill.
I have spent some of the time trying to recall particulars of my best and worst rides. The worst seems easy enough. June or early July, 1983, northeast of Omaha. A windy Sunday, Mark and I and his brother John rode from Omaha to Underwood, where we stopped and had a hearty breakfast. A big stack of pancakes as I recall. The ride up had been unremarkable. But on leaving the truckstop restaurant the highway crossed the interstate on a long uphill bridge, onto a hilly two-lane, into a strong headwind. Immediately I recalled and regretted the pancakes, which had been so tempting. As the ride progressed, I fell further and further back, and felt my energy level plummetting. Eventually I realized the wind was such that I was having to downshift even on the downhills, and any turnaround for home was probably miles away. Mark and John had vanished over the hilly horizon.
I reluctantly -- but gratefully -- stopped the bike, sat a few moments midst the wild grasses, listened to the wind and the occasional bird song. I watched the empty horizon for several minutes. Then I said the Hell with it, turned the bike around, and let the wind help me ride back, until I reached a roadside convenience store. I chained the bike to a post, where it would be visible should my erstwhile friends come back looking for me, and I called for a ride home. About 30 minutes later Mark and John appeared, having -- they said -- watched for me from time to time, believing I was probably just a hill or two behind. My ride evenually showed up, and I chalked it all up to the elements.
That, I believe, was the only time I truly "bonked" on a ride, though there have been other times when the end came with a sense of great relief. A few memories well up, of gray cold winds and broiling summer afternoons.
As I believe I have already written, I can find no particular ride that stands out as wonderful, though the two Tour de Nebraska rides (300 or so miles over a few days) shine in my memory. I recall one of them up in Northeastern Nebraska, a beautiful prairie summer morning, the road steel gray and shining under a not-yet-hot sun, dew still beside the road, the wind still sleeping, the birds happy to see me pass by, my bike buddies Mark and Paul nearby but not immediately beside me. I recall a long sweep of road leading to the town of Bancroft and John Neihardt's old domain. Memories of green and gray, smells of grass and wildflowers, the bike-generated wind gentle on my face, warm sunshine. Good to be alive.
I also remember the long last downhill on the old GORP ride (Greater Omaha Ride to Pisgah), an annual ride for several years with Mark and Paul, some 38 miles from Omaha to mom and dad's farmstead. That ride was moderately challenging in spots, but mostly manageable -- and it was pleasant indeed to top the last hill and see the turnoff below that led to the small green farmhouse, with its decrepit barn and two towering cottonwoods, and the fields all around, knowing that mom was waiting with her ox-tail stew, and the bikes could be left around the yard to fend for themselves. That, for me, is the essence of bicycing, a reasonable effort well-rewarded.
But I can't close here with recalling some summer rides in the 1970s, usually with Mark, when we would get on our bikes, sometimes wearing blue jeans, and ride the 15 or so miles to Elkhorn, where we would hang out in the saloon for a couple hours and drink beer -- then climb back on the bikes, the hot afternoon sun sneering at us, and weave our way home. No helmets, no water, no sense. From this vantage point that was all wrong, from the clothing to the beer, but we were too young and impetuous, and dare I say idealistic, to know or care better. And those were wonderful times.