My bicycle and me. We have a bond. With April's help we found each other, and now we are committed. He waits for me at the bus station, or train station, or outside the bar...just waiting to give me a safe ride home. Blue Steal provides me with transportation and freedom. In return, I take him out for adventures. My favorite are night rides. Standard route: 6.5km Noljakka to Niinivaara.
I have to leave the warm comfort of a friend's house. Stepping outside the air is damp and chilled. Click. Helmet on. Next: the gloves. If you put on gloves before doing up your helmet the buckle is very hard to fasten. Bike unlocked...thank goodness it hasn't frozen shut (I helped it out with some cooking oil a few weeks ago). 3 clicks on the bike light...1 - epileptic flash....2 - steady beat....3 - steady on. Just about ready. I'm not sure how warm or cold it is out. Earlier today it was snowing. Then raining. Now it is just a thick fog with a penetrating chill. I test the sidewalk by running the sole of my shoe along the surface...sand and pebbles roll beneath my foot making a scratching sound. Ice. Definitely re-frozen; no sudden moves allowed on the way home.
The ride starts with a stiff uphill. My nose is already dripping. Then, I duck behind a church and I'm onto the forest paths. These are my favorite, particularly on nights like this. They are lit at regular intervals by high efficiency lights...also known as the lights that keep you in the dark. However, the lights throw just enough light to illuminate sharp lines through the mist in the trees and create eerie shadows across the paths and into the darkness of the forest on a nordic winter evening. The lights cast my shadow onto the pathway and it distorts as I ride by. At first my shadow drags behind as I approach the light, but it slowly creeps forward until it is under me and I am under the light. Suddenly, my shadow races ahead of me into the darkness, as if to race as quickly as possible away from the light that is making it. Finally, it dissipates and becomes one with the darkness that is my surroundings.
The trees. Scots Pine. Some glow in the mist while others cower in the darkness. It is a hallway of columns to glide through: behind the neighbourhoods, under the roads and through the frigid night air. It is not yet so cold that the air has no smell. In fact, the air has many scents....exhaust as I pass under a road, cooking as I swiftly slip behind a neighbourhood, wood smoke - pulling at my memories, tobacco smoke - making me cringe. The tobacco smoke lingers along my ride. It may have been a cyclist that passed through, a driver (probably with a dangling air-freshener too), a couple on a walk...a single smoker hovers on a balcony; exiled from the warmly-lit indoors
In some places the snow has survived creating a delicate crunch as Blue Steal rolls along. In other places, I can see the path glistening - an icy concrete. Footprints and the shallow ruts of bicycle tires have been frozen in time... until the next thaw at least. Perhaps tomorrow?
All too soon, the lights of the ice hockey arena dance between the columns of pine. It is the end of the forest path for me. The zambonie is emptying its oversize nose between the already existing piles of "snow." It's odd that it's called snow because the zambonie tailings are nothing like snow. It is not natural....it is not clean, fresh, pure or crisp. It is rejected; the dirty ice scraped off the surface containing the blood, sweat, tears, and spit of many hockey players, figure skaters, and recreational skaters. Zambonie un-snow....definitely not zambonie snow.
My nose is a faucet at this point. My butt is cold, but my hands, heart, and feet are like ovens. I am soo glad I put on these ski socks this morning. It was a battle. The skinny jeans said that knee-high wool socks were not a functional article of clothing. Each time I tried to pull my pant-leg down, the socks would get rolled down to the ankle with it. ugh. to anyone else who wants to wear knee-high socks with skinny jeans: put the socks on before the jeans. It's like doing up your helmet before putting on your gloves. it just works better. I won.
Now I am home, wam, and dry while Blue Steal waits outside in the fog. He will get a place inside as soon as they are finished re-painting my bike room. the fumes are offensive too. We look forward to our next barely-lit outing in and out of the Joensuu neighbourhoods.
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