No Direction Known — Ride. Write.

2016 Dirty Kanza 200

Ice Sock Fever

Dead turtle. Crushed armadillo. A buzzard up ahead, pulling at the gizzards of some road kill. “Carrion my wayward son…” The stupid earworm that had jumped into my head two days ago while riding in Lawrence comes back. Kansas. Of course it would be Kansas.

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2015 Dirty Kanza 200

Lay your dirty Burden Down

There was a sound, rude and sudden. Of metal screeching through a tiny tear in the mechanical universe. A grind and crunch and this is what dreams being crushed in Fate’s fist sounds like. Instantly, you stop pedaling to brake and balance precariously before putting a foot down. It was the hopeless, pathetic cry of a derailleur twanging a spoke as it ripped your heart from its moorings in the harbor of your chest.

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2014 Dirty Kanza 200

A MEDITATION ON SELF

You. You are a frivolous person. A frivolous person with frivolous thoughts that spin and cartwheel on the front lawn of your mind. Legs flinging, knees bent, your thoughts less perfect with each rotation. Less complete and full.

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Prologue

Giro Rosa 2015

Ljubljana, Slovenia

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Ride Report

HEMATOMA TAKES A HOLIDAY

If I’ve absorbed anything from American summer camp movies it’s that you need a camp buddy if you’re gonna survive the short-sheeting and underpant wedgies. It should come as no surprise to anyone that I sought one out for Dirty Kanza training camp. It may come as some surprise, however, to discover that in order to find my camp buddy, I had to look no further than my own leg.

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Groundhog Day Edition

TOUR DE TREE

The Tour de Tree. Five Days, 10 stages, mucho hurt. There is only one rule: All riders must complete a loop of the Mother Tree during a stage or risk disqualification. The following is an account of the third edition of this tour.

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Rebecca's Private Idaho

Sawtooth Beasts they Come Undone

There’s poetry to riding a bicycle. A rhythm. A tempo. The percussion of the chain as it reverbs over terrain, the gear-shift melody, the rattling of a loosening bottle cage in a syncopated tick, which amplifies the verse as it flows through your mind.

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