R.M. Dolin, December 4, 2023
Roubaix Challenge
Snow’s mostly melted,
at least enough to get my bike
back on the road. The steady sun’s
welcoming in the way tired bones yearn
to relive times when suffering seemed
so essential. Belgium lies beyond
the unseen edge of
my mountainous horizon even as Roubaix’s
“Hell of the North,” challenges me to
train past my planned fifty kilometer ride,
allowed to stop only because
my feet are cold
and hands went numb
long before that last descent.
I’m learning to smile again. . .
Just as strange something like that is tied
to a bike ride as it is weirdly impossible
to explain how
suffering up grueling climbs
only to endure the casting cold of downhill coasts
frees me from life’s constraints
keeping me wrapped
in the same perpetual loop
as the well worn chain
around my bicycle gears.
Background poem for the novel, “The Dangling Conversation.” Kyle trains hard for a race in France that he naively hopes will reunite him with Nadia.
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