Spokes

June 5, 2017

Greetings from the three cross,

Each of us is given a little discretion in our day to make adjustments in our actions and our attitudes so that we have a good mix of what is required and what is desired.  This balance of work and play, of focus and daydream, of doing and going and just being, is what makes our days satisfying and fulfilling.  It is also true of the people you choose to share your day.

There has never been a part of my life where bicycles were not present.  Some years I had more time in the saddle than others, but I have never been far from two wheels and two lanes. 

The care of a bicycle is both science and art; it is as much technical as it is intuition and feel.  Almost everything you do to keep a bike running has something to do with very subtle nuance, the sense of your body interacting with the mechanics of the machine.  Nowhere is that more so than with the wheels.

For many of us we simply expect the wheel will spin and off we go.  But allow me to point out what is easy to take for granted: building a wheel, lacing the spokes in a particular pattern, is what makes the ride possible, enjoyable, for decades.  The rim of the wheel is connected to the hub by spokes, usually 32 of them, attached in a pattern that provides strength without adding a lot of weight that will slow the rider. 

Where each of the spokes crosses its neighbor it shares the load on the wheel.  If your spokes are laced correctly, and with the correct tension, these thin tendrils of metal will support all manner of weight and stress of travel.  If the spokes are tightened correctly, they will keep the wheel running exactly straight.

I love this; when you set the tension of the spokes so that your wheel will spin straight you ‘true’ your wheel, or ‘balance’ it.  Tiny adjustments in the spokes make the desired change possible.

When the wheel is out of true, it is out of whack.  It is wobbly or flat, which makes the ride less efficient, or impossible.  Bend a spoke, or break one, and you find out how important it was to keeping the wheel true.

This week I had my sixtieth birthday, which is to say I have a lot of miles on me.  I will admit here that many of those miles were harder, or less enjoyable, than they had to be because I was out of balance.  I’m here to tell you that in order to make the next six decades possible, I am going to true my wheels.

One of the things I have learned is that I don’t always have all the skills I need to create a rich life.  I don’t need to have them all, I just have to be willing to seek and accept what I’m missing.  This week I celebrated being alive, something we all should do every day.  But you know how it is; take for granted the wheel will always spin.  So my friends and my family helped remind me, and they brought me the help I wanted and didn’t realize it.

Sometimes it happens like this; you are riding your bike up a mountain pass in front of someone you met that morning and he pulls alongside you at the top and says; “I noticed your rear wheel is pulling to the right.”  So much that at each revolution it drags a little on the brake pad.

And maybe he offers to get out his spoke wrench and tweak things just a bit; a quarter turn on this spoke, a little less here, then spin the wheel and watch the rim spin.  True.

And from then on you realize how much you needed that.  You are humming down the road, spinning with less effort, head up, eyes to the horizon.  No longer grinding out each mile wondering why it’s so hard to do what used to be so easy.

My life is laced with amazing people who give me strength, who support me and keep me straight.  I am most happy when I feel all of them interlaced, feel the balance of those who love me, those friends who share my beliefs, those who challenge me, the people who are connected to me.  And of course, I am part of their wheelset too.

In order to feel true, I cannot focus just on one or two spokes, and not just the ones that are loose or bent.  I need to touch each one, feel that it is in the right place, feel that it is connected and pulling the wheel true.  Each day I will run my hands over these parts of my life, so that I know and they know. 

Hope this finds you true,

David

Copyright © 2017 David Smith