We Ride at Dawn

The iPad chirps awake at 7:30 AM, normally way too early for a Sunday morning. The sun slips through the leaves and into the room and I am awake. I walk down the hall to Isaac’s room and wake him up: “Time to ride buddy.” The normally sleepy pre-teen bolts awake and tosses off his covers. In a few minutes we are gathering our stuff—helmet, pads, and bikes—for what is one of my favorite little traditions: a riding through the woods with my Mountain Bike Buddy.

About a mile and half away there is a conservation area in the town of Lunenburg. About a half dozen times since I got my mountain bike, Isaac and I have gone through this ritual so that we could ride before the scorching sun reached its peak. The result is some really good riding just before it gets too hot and buggy for wooded travel.

The trails aren’t as manicured as those found at a mountain bike park, but there is no crowd or wait, just hop on and go. Isaac and I have even named a few features. The main trail that connects all of the other trails is called “Main Street.” There is a lake with a very twisted drop nearby that we call “Brain Twister” in honor of a burled stump strategically placed at the bottom of the trail. Even cooler—we have yet to find all of the trailheads and so it seems like this unending network of riding.

But better than the trails or the riding is the company. With two boys, a business, a pandemic, and a professor to contend with our schedule is super busy and packed to the gills. This time when it is just I-man and myself brings me back to when he was very little. In fact, I think we have a shot of him when we were riding the bike path and Ayer where he is doing this exact same lean, but in that picture he was standing up and still able to lean on my shoulder because he was so little. He is not little anymore, but he is still his Dad’s buddy.

Hopefully you will be able to catch us for the foreseeable future, Sundays at 7:30 AM.