Riding toward the campsite.

A wee slice of heaven!

Things I learned:

• I can recover from adrenaline while away from my home, at least in a quiet, secluded spot. This bodes well for the possibility of touring should I need to recover. At least I know recovery on the road is possible, with the right conditions.
• On a related note, sometimes eating a little dirt through the knees and hands is the only way a spirited lassie learns that I may know what I’m talking about when it comes to riding fast on a loose gravel downhill. All things considered, the price of the lesson was light: a bit of skin and pride on her part, some adrenaline on mine. Sardonic grin.
• My plan for traveling as light as possible while still having the equipment I need for being comfortable in any weather or condition ( including recovering somewhere if needed) worked well. My load is lighter and lower on the bike than my previous trips. I may be able to tour like this.

I am preparing to go on a pilgrimage to El Sanctuario de Chimayo, NM (beware the link has an autostart video with sound on, and may startle bludgeoned brains). Our family did a pilgrimage there several years ago, and in the year and years since, I’ve been blessed with some tremendous leaps of healing. It feels like it is time to return and partake of some holy dirt again.

Last trip, I made it about half way there (150 miles) when the weather and the toll of the trip wore me down and I rode with my family in the van the rest of the way. This time I will be attempting the pilgrimage on my own, as my wife has her own journey to take right here at home.

This trip I will start of slower, taking shorter rides each day to not push my limits, knowing the journey will throw unexpected things my way that use up any reserve I have (a reserve I did not have on my last pilgrimage!).

June, 2008: I rode a trike (now I ride a bike, with vertigo, thanks to riding barefoot!), which I now realize had a number of things that limited my ability to ride it both far and day after day (including transferring a lot of the road vibration to my head). Much has changed in these past 4 years!


At Sand Dunes National Park in 2008. Walking in the unstable sand was not possible with my walking sticks and vertigo. I hope to visit the park again this pilgrimage. Will I be able to walk in the dunes?

I have no idea how far I will make it. At the very least I hope to get to San Luis and the Stations of the Cross there (sorry, I couldn’t find a webpage run by the Stations of the Cross directly). However far I get, on the journey, I will be praying for all who struggle with strife from brain injury and other challenges.

May God startle you with joy!

The building across the way from us in our quiet wee town has been partially destroyed. That was noisy. I could not escape. Over the years I’ve tried. I’ve tried running the trails. But I can not carry enough with me to spend the day out and return and I can rarely run the role day, let alone do it again the next and the next. I’ve tried being dropped off by my wife, but we could never find a place she could drop me off that worked. Nothing we tried worked. Until now. Until the freedom of the bicycle.

These past few days the partially razed lot next door received delivery of steel girders and trusses. Loud clanging rang though the air and seemed to explode from within my brain. Yet I was able to get out, on my bicycle, with a thermos of hot tea, clots for whatever the Colorado spring day might throw my way (rain, sleet, hail, snow, sun, heat, cold, often within the same hour).

I was able to peddle my way to freedom. I’ve gone various places. The first place I went, where I would have had my wife drop me off were she driving, was a park in Woodland Park. But I got there and there were children playing, joyously noisy of course. I rode a trail the meandered off, and became frustrated by a constantly yowling, howling dog who sounded both mournful and trapped. I felt highly sympathetic yet had no desire to share the experience and rapidly became thankful as I discovered the trail I though was a short exercise trial connected with other trails that wandered into other trails, and took me to seclusion — seclusion with cell and data reception so I could write and connect with the internet thought out the day. Yet there were trails I could ride however far I desired. A place to check in when I wanted or needed, yet the freedom to play.

My brain has experienced the catastrophic effects of unplanned destruction, the result of numerous concussions since I was 12. Now, I have constant delivery of raw materials needed for the planned, ordered destruction that is the reconstruction and healing of my brain. I need quiet for that to happen. The construction in the lot next door is beyond my control, but now, my ability to find freedom elsewhere and provide my brain with the quiet and solitude it needs to heal further is not. That is a boundless gift unexpected of the bicycle.

Now I need not become a cowering, angry, cornered animal trapped by circumstances beyond my control when there is a car show with loud music, or the town’s Bronc Day blares over loud speakers. I have an option. I can leave and go discover where my brain can continue to recover and delve into it’s planned destruction of what is to create whatever wonders are to come.

There is gift in everything, no matter how oddly wrapped! (shameless plug for my ebook, which is free if you want or can cost you anything you choose to pay so others may gladly take it for free).

May God startle you with joy!

She’s two. I’m over forty, though I don’t remember by how much and am too lazy to spend brain energy on the math. multiple days ago I was reading her a story. She decided it was done, leapt up and bonked her head into the side of mine. I’ve been recovering every since.

My eldest and I had just gotten back from our first bikepacking trip together. It had gone really well. Here are some photos:

Our eldest absorbs the wonder. Bikepacking gives us some wonderful time together as well as giving my wife and caregiver a break from me for a wee while.

I’ve discovered knickers accomplish the same thing as a kilt in terms of minimizing the brushing of the leg, and the overloading of the brain. I’ll be in knickers a lot more now.

Can I Rediscover Stillness?
What I’ve learned is that I do better not riding so far or long each day. Doing a few hours, at least for now, is good. Then we camp. That leaves a lot of time. I’m going to work on embracing that time doing something my brain has not been able to do since the end of 2002: embrace stillness. To compensate for the vertigo, I always keep my mind focused on something. Doing, reading, writing, watching. I think it’s time to try stillness again. Perhaps it will work, since my brain has learned to trust my body enough that I can run trails and ride a bike. Perhaps it trusts my body enough to embrace stillness also. If so, I wonder if or how that will help it embrace chaos? Sardonic grin.

That is my quest this spring/summer/fall: embrace stillness. May God startle you with joy!

Then I headed down Crystal Falls trail. Yet another trail I had no business being on with my bike. I had to carry it down many sections, and walk it the remainder. But it was wonderful to be out, having adventure and being a fool. It is a wonderful gift — especially considering that yesterday numerous things overloaded my bludgeoned brain and kept me from joining the family for our Seder Meal. The time to reflect on the things I do to add to Christ’s suffering and the graces I need to overcome where I am deaf, blind, dumb, and stupid is always a wonderful, refreshing poignant time.

I pray the grace of Jesus our Christ be with you and may the painful joy and wonder of his sacrifice fill your life with splendor.

Shadowfax on my first S24O bikepacking trip. It is stunning to have a beast so willing and able to carry me nearly anywhere I want to go.

I do not pretend to understand. I just keep trying things with this bike. Things that make no sense. Why? To learn what works and what doesn’t.

Thirty minutes ago I did a stupid thing. I tried to walk a balance beam I put together for our lassies in the back yard. It’s an old, twisty log, inherently unstable. Perfect for them to challenge themselves. Way out of my vertigo-challenged league. Idiot. I did it anyway. Short-circuited myself. Idiot.

So, what do I do? I can barely walk to the garage, but what the heck? Why not see if I can ride the bike? I can. Did nearly a mile. Not a normal thing I’ll do, as any type of thinking due to oddities like a car passing would have been challenging. I rode slow but stable. I couldn’t have walked a 10th that distance.

Amazing. The stability of a solid, well-built bicycle. Couldn’t have done it on the previous test bikes (I tried one. Not a chance). Amazing.

Like the reflection in a lake, normal life seems so close and real, yet is so easily scattered to oblivion by a gentle breeze.

Brain injury is humbling. While there are days and times when life almost seems close to the “normal” it was before scrambled neurons, the smallest of things changes that in a heartbeat.

Yesterday began very well. I decided to work with my two eldest daughters setting up their fishing rods for an upcoming bikepacking trip. 30 minutes of fine motor skills, working with fishing line. I set up mine so I do not have to tie knots very often. It means fewer fish, but more brain energy. Thirty minutes of fine motor skills cost me the rest of the day. I should have waited at least until the end of the day. Sardonic grin.

That set me up to begin to day with less brain cushion than I’ve come to be accustomed to. When I turned on the hall light at 5am: “Pop! FLASH!” it went super nova and then out. So did my brain.

Those wafts of tantalizing normal occasionally drift in on a breeze of life, offering a wee glimmer of what life used to be like. And then the world colludes again to overload my brain.

Somehow that all seems very appropriate for Holy Week. Tomorrow is Holy Thursday, the Last Supper. We’ll have a family Seder Meal and I’ll join in however I am able. Wafts of normal amid the chaos. Yet how different is that from anyone? We all have our own poverties to struggle with, and we all need Christ on the Cross to cleanse us of the less-than holy things we cling to. And for those of us who struggle in our own suffering, we have Jesus on the Cross to hold on to, join our suffering with, and feel his embrace, knowing we are in good company.

May God startle you with joy!

Graphic from www.MarksDailyApple.com

I have been startled by the impromptu fasts I’ve had. My most recent one was a 24 hour fast on a bikepacking trip. I had food, stove and simply was not hungry so did not eat. I felt great. That’s with 3 hours of cycling out and back. This sort of thing just seems to happen when eating Paleo.

Mark Sisson has a great post exploring the whys and wherefores of how fasting, and entering ketosis regularly, makes a big difference to brain health. Fascinating!

My conclusion is simple: I am better off not wearing a helmet. (Yes, I just put on a helmet and flack jacket to weather the anticipated email and comments.) Why? Why in the world would a brain bludgeoned guy not wear a helmet? Of all people, surely he should know the price of not wearing a helmet!

The short version is not wearing a helmet uses a LOT less brain energy than wearing one (tactile stimulation, wind noise, pressure on the head, extra weight on top). Combine this with the reality that helmets are far from the safety panacea they are tauted and sold as (go figure), and I’ve decided I’m better off overall without one.

In my rides so far without a helmet, I find myself going slower that I would have with a helmet, yet having just as much fun. This article elucidates the multitude of positions regarding helmets. Among the many shockers: cycling deaths rose as helmet use did and those countries with the least helmet use have the fewest cycling deaths.

Ultimately, wearing a helmet is a very personal decision. What I’ve learned is there are good and legitimate reasons on both sides and it is simply nonsense that people who choose not to wear a helmet must be stupid, or dare devilish, or any other stereotypes.

Our kids will wear helmets as they are learning to ride a bike safely. Once they are old enough to be responsible for knowing the rules of the road and how to navigate them safely and are past the various learning stages that beget accidents, then we will offer them the choice.

The bottom line is whether you wear a helmet or not, it is not the first or even second line of safety protecting you. Riding smart, being visible, riding within your capacity are all critical to avoiding an accident — something a helmet can not do.

Another BIG aspect of bicycle safety is creating a culture that sees bicyclists as people (we are, you know), and makes the logical presumption that bicycling as a mode of transport is far safer than driving (it is, you know). Holland definitely has made a choice to embrace cycling, after being much a similar place as we are in our love of the automobile.

Whatever you choose regarding helmets, cycle safely, using knowledge, including the knowledge that avoiding an accident is the best safety choice you can make.

May God startle you with joy.

Over the past three years, my body has learned to use proprioception (the body’s own ability to be aware of itself and it’s positioning in the world) that had been snuffed out by wearing shoes.

Recently I discovered I can ride a bike barefoot, and sprung at the chance to once again be self- mobile over longer distances. I chose a specific maker of bicycle known for building hearty, stable, smooth, well balanced, do-anything bikes. When he heard what I was doing, including riding barefoot, he mentioned some wood peddles he has and offered to send them my way.

The wood peddles have some story to them, I don’t remember what (no short term memory, and I didn’t write it down), but they were made as a custom gift for someone who then didn’t need them. So I get theyr wondrous, quirky gift. They are a picture of odd, clunky beauty in which function trumps form but form comes out quite well in the end. But perhaps I’m biased. Grin.

So, to whomever made my hobbit peddles, thank you! They are wonderful! My hobbit feet thank you too! As for the hobbit sighting, I can only say it was near a heartily flowing spring of ENT water. Perhaps that explains the creature’s height?