The carburetor on the mower was gummed up again. Needed carb cleaner. The auto parts store is two and a half miles away. Could have driven. Grabbed the bike instead. Two-forty-eight miles round trip in the July morning before Pensacola turned into a convection oven. Seventeen minutes of pedaling through humidity you could chew. Got the cleaner, stuffed it in…

The mower was acting up — sputtering, flooding, refusing to stay running. Needed carb cleaner. Could’ve driven. Got on the bike instead. Two and a half miles round trip to the auto parts store, July in Pensacola, which means the air is soup and your shirt is a liability by the time you’re halfway there. Seventeen minutes of pedaling through…

Aiden wanted to ride bikes. That’s it. That’s the reason. A mile and change through the neighborhood, him leading because he always leads, me keeping pace because that’s the job. Not training. Not exercise. Just a kid who wanted company on two wheels and an adult who said yes. Lasted nine minutes. Felt like summer. Some rides don’t need a…

Aiden wanted to ride. That’s all the reason you need when you’re seven and the sun’s still up at seven PM in a Pensacola June. A mile and change through the neighborhood. Him leading because he always leads. Me keeping pace because that’s the deal. He talked the whole time — about Minecraft, about the cat, about whether sharks sleep….

First ride of the season. June 2019. Almost a full year since the last one. The bike had been sitting — I don’t know where, a closet, a porch, wherever bikes go when you forget about them for eleven months. Life happens. You stop riding. Then one evening you don’t stop. 0.95 miles. Nine minutes. 10:30 pace, which on a…

Almost 10. The name says it all — 9.88 miles. Twelve hundredths short. Close enough to round up if you’re the kind of person who does that. I’m not. Ghost owned this entire ride. The full Prequelle album, front to back, almost. “Faith” to open, “See the Light” to build, “Miasma” with that saxophone solo carrying me through mile six,…

Almost hit ten. Ended at 9.9 miles, sixty-three minutes on the bike, and Ghost playing the entire time. Ten tracks of Tobias Forge carrying me through the last Florida heat of September. There’s something about Ghost on a long ride — the theatrical builds match the pace changes, the heavy drops land when the legs are burning, and Papa Emeritus…

Shifters out of wack. That’s the title, and that’s what happened. Got on the bike at 4 AM, made it less than a mile, and the derailleur was fighting me the whole way. Gears slipping, chain grinding, that specific mechanical stubbornness that tells you to turn around or push through and break something. I turned around. 0.93 miles, four minutes,…

A third of a mile. Zero minutes, according to Strava — which really means “not enough time to round up.” This was probably the walk from wherever I parked the bike to the door and back, or a GPS ghost from the McDonald’s stop. The kind of activity that exists in the log because the phone was still recording. 0.35…

Ten miles for a McMuffin. That was the deal. Breakfast had to be earned on a Saturday morning in July, Florida heat already building by 8 AM, and the only currency accepted was sweat. Armin van Buuren and Martin Garrix on the speakers — proper trance and EDM for a proper distance. Hi-Lo dropping bass while the miles dropped behind….