To Their Own Hues, And Others

Earlier today, I wrote a post about something people might not associate with Spring:  a survivor pedaling among the wreckage of Mariupol.

To me, this season is about the living beings who make it through winter--whether it's a season of cold, snow and darkness or the death and destruction of war (another kind of darkness) as well as the new life that rises, whether from the ashes or a well-tended garden.

Because I've encountered the latter on afternoon rides, I am more fortunate than the cyclist in my earlier post.  It's funny, though, how Dee-Lilah (my custom Mercian Vincitore Special), Vera (my Miss Mercian), La-Vande (my custom King of Mercia) and Tosca (my Mercian fixie) always seem to find reflections of themselves.

Or, at least they, in their differing shades of purple, are drawn like moths to the flame of color.

Even if it isn't their own.

 

Cyclist: A Survivor In Mariupol

Yesterday I wrote about the world's first acid trip, which Dr. Albert Hofmann took, if unwittingly, on his bike ride home.

If you've ever been on an "acid trip," you know that it can include visions heavenly or hellish.  The latter could describe what this cyclist--who, I assume, was not under the influence of LSD or any other substance--exprienced:

Photo by Alexander Ermochencko, for Reuters

Reports I've read and heard say that Mariupol, a port city in Ukraine, has been "wiped off the face of the earth," or words to that effect.  I have no reason to doubt such reports:  The reports and accompanying images show steel stick-figures, the skeletons of destroyed buildings and rubble everywhere.  And though there is death and destruction everywhere, thankfully, many have survived.  Their lives, like the ride of that cyclist, will go on.

A Trip On Bicycle Day

Today is Bicycle Day.  Tomorrow is Weed Day.

About the latter, there are many stories about its origin--why, specifically, the 20th of April is associated with marijuana.  The most plausible-sounding one involves a group of teenagers in Marin County, California (the birthplace of mountain biking) who met at 4:20 in the afternoon to partake.  They chose that time, according to lore, because their schools' extracurricular activities ended by that time and as Dave Reddix, one of the group, recalled, "We got tired of the Friday night football scene with all of the jocks."  Because they met at that time, "420" became their code for weed.  Later, Reddix worked as a Grateful Dead roadie and the term went viral, so to speak.

On the other hand, the story of how today became Bicycle Day is more closely documented.  On this date in 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann ingested a small amount of a compound derived from ergot fungus.  Feeling disoriented, he rode his bicycle home.  Along the way, he experienced the beautiful and terrible effects of that compound, lysergic acid diethymalide.  So,. in more ways than one, Dr. Hoffmann took the world's first acid trip.

So, in honor of Dr. Hofmann on Bicycle Day, I am posting a video of the song that, in its own way, is "a real trip":

Hofmann lived another 65 years after his "trip," to the age of 102.  It must have been the bicycling!

(Tell me what a latter-day hippie living in California had in mind when he called his book about bicycle touring "Bike Tripping.")