The sun doesn’t always come out.
Thanksgiving has passed, the temperature has dropped, and the leaves have succumb to gravity.
This is when I love to get outside and find the beauty in the ugly. Wet muddy roads littered with potholes. Trails covered in slick leaves, sticks and downed branches. Fat squirrels darting under your wheels, not so bright those squirrels.
Rides with an easy pace. Rides taken to clear your mind, open your eyes and find new beauty in the yuck. Rides shared with the friends you don’t always get to talk to when you’re pounding the pavement on faster roads.
Corn fields plowed over sit frozen in time waiting for a new lease on life. Barren tree tops reveal Red Tailed Hawks scanning the ground for unsuspecting morsels. Deer run the trails eating as much as they can as the last of the green disappears until next spring.
A time to ride slowly immersed in the pale yellow and white sky of the midwestern winter. The sun, if you see it at all hardly makes over the tree tops and gives no warmth, no rest from the constant cold that seeps into my body as I ride.
I smile. I know it won’t last. I know this is temporary. I know I’ll be on the road again soon enough with my Veloist CC pals.
So I look for the beauty in the ugly. I practice my slow belly breathing. I try and stay warm and I wait.
If you’d like to see more of this painting, or to purchase it click through on this link — WINTER RIDE CYCLING ART
