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Tir Na NOg 11/22/2014 6:38:10 AM
When your back goes out and you're in rehab, what does your roadbike think about in its hours of idleness? Tir Na NOg:
Musings while locked in a garage
Peaceful here. Dark. Dry. Feeling all that pressure slowly going down. Just hanging on the wall. No worries.
Where is she, I wonder. It’s been a while.
The last time we went out, September I think. Rolling hills, a few big-bitch steep ones. One stretch of fresh-laid asphalt still soft, it kicked up a lot of icky. We got around all the potholes and cornersand, the damn broken glass on the shoulder.
She and I hardly ever clash; no clunking gears, no crisscrosses, no dropped chains. We get along good.
She gave me a bath after that ride, and a wax job. She worked some lube into those parts I like. She shampooed the icky off my power train, using that cute gizmo that kind of tickles, then lubed and wiped it clean. Ahhh, feels so good after.
She hoisted me up on the wall, made sure I was settled.
“Tir Na NOg,” she said to me. “Tir Na Fuckin NOg.”
She hasn’t been back since.
It’s autumn now. Acorns. Slimy leaves and slick pine needles gathering at the corners. But still the best time to be going. Into the hill country, the apple country. It’s spinning fast and easy, no noise but whooshing wheels and, on the big bitches, she does some groaning and panting.
I help her be Tir Na NOg because I am really energy efficient and she is not. Though we are both made largely of carbon, my design is perfect and she has structural flaws. She is a much older model. But together we slip along like a silverfish.
Maybe her frame is cracked. Cables corroded. Or she just needs to be trued up. I’m good with that. I pass the winter here, remembering the fine summer we had, even though no autumn. Maybe we will get pumped up again for Spring. In Spring it will be Tir Na NOg again. Tir Na NOg, always.
