Tunesday : Riders on the Storm

Riders on the Storm

(As Written and Performed by The Doors)

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm

There's a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin' like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If you give this man a ride
Sweet family will die
Killer on the road, yeah

Girl, you gotta love your man
Girl, you gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
The world on you depends
Our life will never end
Gotta love your man, yeah

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan.
Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm

This past Sunday was the Tour de Grand - the whole reason why Dave and I bought bicycles, as part of our summer of the Grand River - and as always, once we were off by ourselves, Dave started singing, bits of this song and that. I think he started with In the Ghetto, and as I noted the leafy green tunnel of trees that we were passing through, I remarked that it wasn't feeling very ghettoey. Then he switched to Light My Fire (referencing some scene out of Apocalypse Now because of the trailside marshy/jungly bits), and finally settled on Riders on the Storm as the best suited background song for our ride - and I have to admit that it had a great beat for pumping the legs. So, without him even realising it, Dave chose my Tunesday song for this week - and it's a song I love; thematically close enough.

This was the 22nd annual running of the Tour de Grand, and our first time entering it in our 22 years here. As we were walking our bikes up to the starting area, Dave later told me that he overheard the Marshall telling a man that they expected two thousand riders this year, and that it fulfilled his every hope for getting the community together and enjoying the outdoors; just exactly what Dave and I have been hoping to get out of these experiences ourselves. Because we're newbies - to this event and to cycling in general - I was cautious in my selection of a route for us; and although it was possible to do a road route of up to 175 km (whelp!), I chose the "up to" 25 km rail trail that Dave and I have had a few practise runs on. Because this was the novice option, I knew that there would be plenty of kids with training wheels, parents with bike trailers, and slow moving clumps and groups, and the closer it got to the starting time (and the more I could see that it was basically all families with young kids around us), the more I worried that we'd be stuck going even slower than we'd want to, jamming up at road crossings, and getting frustrated with the crowds. But as we got going, we were soon sorted a little ahead of the slow moving folks, and while every now and then some people (including kids) would pass us, too, for the most part, it felt like we had the trail to ourselves just like it was any other Sunday - as that picture at the top shows.

The weather was ideal - slightly cool with the tree canopy shading the sun when it did peek out from the clouds - and the air was fresh and scented with green things. There are boggy spots along the path - and they add a richer, loamier weight to the air - but there are also many places in this stretch of the trail where the trees open up and the Grand River runs alongside you; green-brown, glassy, and wide; studded with treed islets and busy with waterfowl. The river was, initially, the point of me selecting this particular activity for our summer, and that view alone argued for us sticking to the plan to take the novice path and leave the roadway routes to those whose primary focus was the cycling itself; to me, the bikes were a means to that view.

We rode past the 10 km marker and the 20 km, just a little further to the "Stunning River Vista" turnaround that we knew would total the ride to 25, and Dave and I briefly stopped there; Dave offering to take a photo of a man and his son who had decided to ride that far as well. Soon turned around and returned to the arena - delighted that the few practise runs we had taken were enough to prepare us with plenty of energy left over - we were happy to join in the lunch that I hadn't known was included when I signed us up.

Getting out in the community and taking part in a shared enjoyment of where we live was exactly what Dave and I talked about when we were planning this summer, and from sitting with hundreds of others in matching T-shirts to talking biking with the man who sat at our picnic table to be beside his kids at the next one over, the Tour de Grand provided us with exactly what we were looking for. The event was efficiently run, there was definitely value for the money (the included T-shirts, pre-, during-, and post-run food, free parking), there were police officers stopping traffic to let groups of bikes cross roads unimpeded: the whole event is definitely professionally run, yet still totally appropriate for novices like me and Dave. What more could we ask for on a beautiful Sunday afternoon? I hope it's just the first of many years of participation in the event.