Friday Writings for Randos - Who's with me?

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from: 

MOMENTUM IS YOUR FRIEND 

by Joe Kurmaskie

Climbing a healthy series of switchbacks through the chill of a Colorado dawn, I don't feel tired, I don't feel the miles I pedaled yesterday or the weight I'm carrying now. Pockets of warm air hug the corners of the road. I spot wildflowers, rebels against the altitude, clinging to washes as I clear the treeline. When I look over my shoulder there's another cyclist, some industrious insomniac out for an early morning ride. He's determined to catch me before the top but it doesn't happen. We rest beside a sign marking Cottonwood pass, at more than 12,000 feet above sea level.

It's every man's secret desire to raise a middle finger to the approach of midlife. High time to stick it to the Reaper while I still have the lung capacity. I want to humiliate that cloaked coward. Put Death in polyester bell-bottoms, gaudy gold medallitons, cue the DJ and make him do "The Hustle" for the viewers at home.

After that maybe we'll dress life's little party crasher in tight Lycra, ride him hard, then drop Death like a wet bag of dirt on some slow rise in the Midwest. Who's with me?!

 . . .

We wait for sunrise at the top of the world - casual gods surveying an evergreen kingdom that spans for miles in every direction - then roll the summit and barrel into another day on the road.