When Violet suggested to me that she and her friends should ride their bikes to school on a recent Friday, I raised my eyebrow, mildly in skepticism but primarily intrigued. Edwards to East Vail is not a small trip in the wee hours of what would be a cold autumn morning, but the distance is ameliorated by the presence of motors on those bicycles and, as these girls grow into adolescence, their strength is ever-growing. Practically speaking, it made very little sense – an early wake-up, a frigid ride, the potential for shenanigans or mishaps. Which was exactly why I thought it was an excellent idea.
My sweet little lady is the latest in a long line of amateur adventurers. Her great-grandfather’s exploits in war-torn Europe and then across the North American continent were legion and the subject of a book that I am writing in frustrating fits and starts. Pops is always down for a hare-brained sojourn with as much physical suffering and mental toil as the challenge can muster and he has made it out of those at least relatively unscathed. The scars on my legs and arms will attest to all manner of silly rambling – I apparently love a good bushwhack and/or post-hole almost as much as I like that slightly numb feeling in my fingers that is just on the good side of frostbite.
Warm and cozy or cool and dry suits the Voborils for only minor lengths of time before our biologic programming requires us to gear up and gallivant into the inner reaches of a tangling forest or to traipse interminably up to a remote peak. As a tyke, Violet was resistant to this psychological inheritance because she is a much more reasonable version of her forebears. But, try as we might, we can never quite escape the deoxyribonucleic acid that courses through us like a river of destiny. In her teen years, Violet has begun to appreciate the enlivening that comes from setting out on a cold, stupid adventure.
A bike gang excursion to school presents only a modicum of risk and was therefore the perfect test case for the group. Violet’s bike skills and awareness are excellent – I have witnessed her riding amid rush hour in the Place de la Concorde, smiling alongside ten lanes of traffic – and I very much trust her judgment and composure. So, she had the basics covered and this was an opportune moment to apply that foundation to a mild mission with her compatriots. Even though, or especially because, this was a relatively easy undertaking, it was ideal training for bigger, scarier forays in the future.
All of the elements of a larger journey were present, but in miniature, low-consequence form. The crew had to figure out the requisite logistics: bike batteries had to be charged, the proper layering had to be determined, the schedule for the various meetups along the way set. Heuristics were also at play in that there had to be trust about timeliness, good communication, and calm demeanors in the event that something went wrong. To have your kit dialed, to have your route set, to have multiple back-up plans, to find partners on whom you can rely, all of these are critical skills for the backcountry operations that these kids will soon undertake on their own.
That Friday morning, I woke up early to make my nugget a warm pancake and then bade her well as she rode off into the pre-dawn darkness. It was a wonderfully stupid thing to do, in the nonsensical as opposed to reckless meaning of the word, and I was intensely proud. The ladies made it to school with plenty of time to spare, enough to take pictures that revealed the joy of the journey. It is a precursor of the many frozen, sweltering, dangerous, lively, and life-affirming adventures that are to come.