Posted by Hmmm … not sure I really even want to write this blog.
I’ve recently become a huge fan of Jill Homer’s “Jill Outside” blog having stumbled across it last weekend when seeing a short article on it in the Bike Bits section of the latest Adventure Magazine. Jill just seems incredible, a real inspiration and more importantly for an online blog, she’s also a brilliant writer. I’ve been devouring her blogs for the last five days, and even ordered her book through Amazon.com (waiting, waiting, waiting).
Problem is, she looks very similar to she who broke my heart recently, which is really annoying as I keep wondering if that might be part of the reason why I find her blogs so fascinating. Scary isn’t it that I’m inside my head, I create most of my own thoughts (some even I disown) and still I don’t have the foggiest idea what my real motivations are.
So, after reading Jill’s latest blogpost Clinging to Summer about heading out into the hills for a ride after work, I suddenly found myself thinking of that trail around the back of Knocklofty that I’d promised myself I’d get back to explore, and with daylight savings having just kicked in, I figured why not.
Somewhat ironically, I therefore had to ride home on my electric bike, grab my mountain bike (and spot) and drive back down to town for the ride. I’m no Jill. I’m still weighing in at over 110kgs, and so a 3 hour ride after work is a bit beyond me, but with Spot suitably activated, I set off for a nice 45 minute ride covering the route I’d cycled the other week to the top of Knocklofty, but in reverse. As I’d guessed, the track was mostly ridable heading up in this direction, although the steps were well beyond me, and before I knew it I found myself back up on the top of the hill with donwhill in every direction from there.
I wish I could regale you with epic adventures about the new bit of track I came here to explore, but the truth is I headed down to where it started (it was called the Mt Stuart Circuit Track) and after a fast decent down a wide gravel track, the route flattened out and before I knew it there was a sign pointing me back off the gravel track and onto a bit of walking track. This section was a bit rocky, and I almost twisted my ankle coming off in one place, but probably less than 10 minutes after reaching the top, the track dropped me back onto the track I’d just ridden up. The section couldn’t have been more than a couple of kilometres which was a bit of an anti-climax. From there it was a nice ride back to the car just as darkness was falling.
I went home and after a hot shower and dinner, I thought I’d jump online and check out Bec’s Melbourne Marathon time and pics which she’d told me when she came around last night, and for some stupid, stupid, stupid reason after checking out Bec’s time I did a search for “Harris” and before I knew it was looking through the Marathon Pics of Little Miss Heartbreaker. I am so stupid, all the strength and positive energy I’ve built up over the last few weeks since last time I did something this stupid evaporated into that great big sucking empty abyss of loneliness, and so instead of drifting to sleep thinking of tracks ridden and epic adventures to come, I spent a restless night just missing her and wishing she were here. It really does suck losing someone you love.
I’m reading Mark Beaumont’s “The man who cycled the world” at the moment, but last night I gave up after 20 or 30 pages as I just couldn’t concentrate on anything but her.
So, darn it. Back to step one on the ladder, here we go again …