Shasta

567 miles. South. Eight hours. One tank of gas (I'm in a rental car). Very little to report from I-5. Blew thru Washington and Oregon, NorCal. Hit Shasta at 4pm, checked in with the RD for tomorrow's 138 miler, got a room, logged on.

Had some time to think with cruise control engaged. Thought about why I do this. About the toll it takes. About the ROI, the cost per hour. About ways we can improve, refine, adjust, tweak. About next month in New Hampshire, Norway. About Hawaii. About my place in all of it. The big picture. The grand scheme. Dots left unconnected. I thought about how many times I have run up and done this highway. My first trip up, the last down. Tales of the road. I chuckled a few times playing back the tapes. I first gazed upon Mt. Shasta in 1974, and had the same feeling then that I did today. Wow. So incredibly humbling. Powerful. Mystic. Another perfect combination of earth and sky in magnificent alignment. I love mountains. I love Shasta, Hood, St. Helens, Rainier, Baker. In a couple of weeks I get to film Mt. Washington. Highest recorded wind speed on Earth. Over 300 MPH.

Cyclists revers mountains the way John Muir did. Because they are there is reason enough to climb, shoot, camp, ski, gawk or ride. Pick one. Go and do. Tomorrow we do 138 miles, over 14,000 feet of total elevation gain. My assignment is to film from the car as others do the fun part. We create indoor training videos so that people who don't have the opportunity to ride for one reason or another can see, ride and feel the same dynamic that those riding tomorrow will feel. Indoors, when the snow is deep, the rain cold, or the traffic unbearable.

That's something good. Something of value. Something to be proud of, I reassure myself.

I run into one of the musicians who played on 2000's Northwest Triathlon The Curse of Pele this afternoon. The how is a long story. Ten years have passed. Michael is now an accomplished drummer and student of the percussive arts. He lives in Shasta. I am Sherpa for some musician friends back home. It was a great pleasure talking about the water that has rushed past our huts over the last decade. The family of musicians is a tight one. Kinda like cyclists. We have talked about this before; Bikes, music, cyclists, musicians.

It's all connected. The road, the miles, the thoughts, the mountains, the musicians, the cyclists, the dynamic.

Tomorrow we climb.

Shasta form the I-5 vista point just before Weed. Michael the Drummer. Both are made of rock.