Images From A Mountain Bike Ride

The missing tooth in the mouth of the rider who passed me at the rock garden. He didn’t clear it either, but “life goes on,” he said. He was wearing a blaze orange vest, unzipped, flapping at his sides as he pedaled away.

This same rider on the trail, riding up “Gravity Hill.” The spring green sloping ridge was backed by a wall of steel blue rain clouds. The orange vest a vivid, slow-moving dot against the sky.

A bluebird sitting on the trail, next to a gray rock, all in shadow. Flown away before I got a second look.

Darkening skies, raindrop dots on my blue sleeves, and then hammering rain. I looked south and saw that I was inside the cloud, with a sunlit city beyond. And then I was through the cloud and it was over.

Evidence of the rain burst as darkened rocks, slippery roots, soaked shoes, the glistening windshield back at the trailhead.