CULT OF JAMES

Ghost again. “Dance Macabre” into “Faith” into “Witch Image” — the Prequelle album was in heavy rotation this summer and I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t perfect for 5 AM cycling. Shorter ride today, just over two miles. Eleven minutes. The route got trimmed a little, or maybe I turned around earlier. Either way, still out there before the…

Morning ride. 2.2 miles, eleven minutes. Ghost again — five tracks crammed into a short loop because when you find the right soundtrack for July in Florida, you don’t change it. Quick and done. Legs moving before the brain catches up. The kind of ride where you’re back in the driveway before the coffee gets cold. STATS 🚴 Ride —…

6:21 AM Saturday ride. The Camila Cabello phase, apparently — “All These Years,” “She Loves Control,” “Never Be the Same,” back to back to back. No judgment. The album is good and anyone who says otherwise hasn’t ridden a bike to it at dawn. Two and a half miles, twelve minutes, 44 feet of elevation. The exact same numbers as…

Morning ride, Camila Cabello morning. Seven tracks, twelve minutes, 2.6 miles. The entire vibe shifted from Ghost’s darkness to pop in the July sun. Sometimes the shuffle knows something you don’t. Havana playing while pedaling through a Florida neighborhood is either perfect thematic alignment or cosmic comedy. Either way, the legs didn’t care what the ears were hearing. They just…

Same morning as the bike ride. 4:49 AM, not even a mile. GPS says 4:43 pace which is absolutely wrong — this was a walk, probably just the leg from wherever I parked the bike back to the door. Strava does this sometimes. Records a fragment, calls it a run, gives you an impossible pace. “Cirice” was still playing. Same…

Another pre-dawn ride. 4:47 AM, two and a half miles, Ghost on the speakers. “Cirice” into “Jigolo Har Megiddo” — that’s a specific kind of darkness to pedal through at almost 5 in the morning. Same route as Tuesday probably. Same distance, same elevation, same twelve minutes. The consistency of someone who has exactly one loop they ride and they…

Morning ride. Ghost again. Five tracks, twelve minutes, the same 2.6-mile loop that the legs know by muscle memory now. July 12th, two days after the last one, same route, same band, same heat. Consistency isn’t exciting. It’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be there when the exciting stuff isn’t. STATS 🚴 Ride — Morning ride 📏 2.60…

3:33 AM bike ride. Two and a half miles. “Space Oddity” playing as I rolled out into the dark. There’s a version of Pensacola that only exists between 3 and 5 AM — empty intersections, the streetlights doing that sodium-orange thing, and you’re the only moving object for blocks. Bowie into a-ha into Eddie Money. The playlist had “Take Me…

Morning ride with the strangest playlist of the summer. David Bowie, a-ha, Eddie Money. The shuffle reached back to the ’80s like it knew something about the rider the algorithm shouldn’t. 2.6 miles, thirteen minutes. Take On Me playing while taking on the same loop. Under Pressure while the Florida morning pressed down. Baby Hold On while holding on to…

Strava recorded this ride twice. Same Circle K run, same Gatorade, same Metal Gear soundtrack. GPS hiccup or phone being weird — either way, the ride only happened once but the data says otherwise. Leaving it up because it’s kind of funny. The algorithm thinks I was so committed to hydration I did it twice. Five and a half miles…