Unique Among Billions…

In 2003, I accompanied my daughter and her mother on an Alaska cruise. Our daughter was 13. One of the shore excursions we signed up for involved taking a helicopter to a glacier for a short hike. Her mother, not fond of flying, decided to stay behind. It would be just my daughter and I for the adventure.

Just after breakfast that morning, my daughter and I walked from the ship to the helipad, buckled ourselves in with four other passengers, and enjoyed the ride of our lives in-between jagged mountains, over striking canyons and crevasses, eventually landing on a mountain glacier near Skagway.

The designated section of the glacier had been opened up for hiking only a few weeks before. The docent in charge pointed out the boundaries and made it clear we were not to go beyond them. After receiving our instructions, we were free to hike independently in the designated area for 30 minutes.

Almost immediately after we began walking, I nudged my daughter and guided us just beyond the designated boundary. For a moment, she and I stood in a spot that might have been previously untouched by human feet — at least not modern human feet. Back on the helicopter, I couldn’t but help feel a sense of profound individuality for standing on what might have been an untouched spot.

Depending on how you define human being, we have been around for roughly 500,000 years. In that time, approximately 100 billion of us have lived.

As a kid growing up in the era of Muhammad Ali, Evel Knievel, and Bruce Jenner, I always had the desire to do things nobody had ever done — or to be better at something than anyone else. Still, I never excelled at anything, despite my desire. I couldn’t sing worth a damn. I never made it past the local level in bodybuilding competition. I could be fast, but not that fast. I had many interests and a lot of passion, but not much discipline in my pursuits.

A few weeks ago I ran out of Shot Bloks — an energy snack I eat at the midpoint of each bicycle ride. Out of Shot Bloks and looking for a substitute before a ride, I grabbed two frozen ravioli squares from the freezer, put them in a Ziploc bag, and placed them in the shoulder bag I ride with.

When I got to the halfway point of my ride at the Old Bonsall Bridge, I put one of the raviolis in my mouth, and as I reached for a water bottle, set the other ravioli on the seat of my bike for a moment. As I took a swig of water, I looked down to see a bicycle seat with a ravioli on it and I thought to myself… I’m probably the first person in human history to set a ravioli on a bicycle seat, so I photographed it.

I don’t know where it comes from, but my whole life I’ve lived with an innate need to be unique — to do something no person has ever done before, yet I’ve come up short for nearly 60 years. I’ll never run the fastest hundred meters on earth, I’ll never sing at the Grand Ole Opry, star in Hollywood movie, or win the Pulitzer Prize.

For the last couple of weeks though, I’ve been placing raviolis on my bicycle seats at the halfway point of each ride and photographing them against pretty backdrops. I can’t imagine anyone else, among the billions who’ve ever lived, has done this, but I could be wrong.

This is what I think about when a ride… Jhciacb

This Week By The Numbers…

Bikes Ridden: 7
201 miles
9,100’ climbing
15.6 mph avg
11,500 calories
12 hours 51 minutes seat time

Whether you ride a bike or not, thank you for taking the time to ride along with me today. If you haven’t already, please scroll up and subscribe. If you like what you read, give it a like and a share. If not, just keep scrollin’. Oh, and there’s this from Stonehoney. Enjoy…