Something deep inside of me bears down on the effort, trying to refuse. I even feel reluctant to write. After about three hours on the bike, the combination of endorphins and exertion and sun produce a mildly euphoric and delirious effect. Time passes ever so quickly. Without even noticing, an hour or two will go by, I will have covered twenty miles and all the while my mind is on a kind of automatic pilot.
Thoughts come and go.
Sometimes I move into what feels to be a profound appraisal of my life at the moment, of my past and my future. The cycling creates a momentum all its own, where the body and mind simply cycle on, enduring, as if in a dream. Sixty and some miles. I've reached the half-way mark and have turned back. The temperature on my bike's computer reads 103.