The Dave Zabriskie interview is finally posted over at The Church of the Big Ring. The first of two parts so walk your ass on over there and have a look.

I’ve spent many hours on this design. Four months conceptualizing. Finding that right balance of beauty, ease, sophistication, and of course Love. Why shouldn’t a website emulate Love? People create, people want products to create.

She is in peace now. I love you baby. I will miss you forever. Thanks for so many years of wonderful adventures.
Love, Mike

My baby is struggling. She’s at least 14 yrs old. I love her more than anything. Movement has been challenging. I have to help her up and down the stairs, which I am happy to do. She takes a prescription medicine for her arthritis and I’m feeding her salmon, vitamins, glucosamine, and chicken on a daily basis. It may be helping, it may not. If anything, it’s making her happy. She sleeps most of the day. She walks a few hundred yards in the morning and again in the afternoon. Then she gets to basque in the spring at Liberty park. The water is cold and I think it feels good to her. She swims a few laps with much more vigor than she walks. Then, she flops on all fours near where the cold water enters the pond. I let her stay as long as she wants. She is loved.

Right now she is sleeping, sleeping like a baby. Lying on the hard wood floor she loves. Cool, Happy. In a few hours she will have to go outside. I will clean up after her as she no longer has the same control that she used to. Maybe I will have to hose off her rear. Some days are good, some days are bad. Nevertheless, she is Loved and cared for. Me??? I don’t know. Thinking about how this will end is troubling. I don’t want to let go. I LOVE my Sonja more than anything. For now, I will do everything I can to make her last days as happy and peaceful as possible. Right now she seems great. Tomorrow? Unkown. Her Mum sent me this email:”

Remember she loves you, too–she worships you and she trusts you to do what is right for her. You need to make a decision about her quality of life. Her’s has been a long and very happy one (at least since she has been with you). The last gift you may have to give her is peace. If it is time to go, you will be the very best judge of that for her, she would count on you for that with those big beautiful trusting eyes!

That last sentence. It put me in tears.

That is a strange statement, but the more I think about it, the more I concur. In an error of judgement, I rented a rather violent video last night, which I quit watching half way through. Twice the line was mentioned in the movie, “Scars are the roadmap to your soul”. I thought about it. Slept on it. And, I have to agree. Scars. They don’t have to be physical scars. I have my share. The stitches I received after hitting a piece of angle iron on a drunken evening. The time I hit my head crashing my bike. I have scars.

Most of them are emotional. The physical scars are an easy heal. As a cyclist, there is an expectation that comes with the trade. We will get hurt. You will fall off your bike. And it has happened. Those are the scars that heal easily. The others, well.. not so easy.

What makes us human, what makes us vulnerable, what makes us hurt…. Scars… I have them. Love, Love lost. Love will come again. I hope.

An imposter sprorting a homemade Velonews press badge snapped this photo.