Follow the Arrows

On Saturday morning I went on a group ride with the local bike shop.  There were a few great things about the ride; like riding with other people, getting a map, and being able to follow the green route arrows that were marked on the roads.  By far the best part of the morning was eating with the group at Flap Jacks after the ride.  I love French Toast!

There were actually two routes marked on the map they gave us; a shorter ride, about 14 miles, which we did on Saturday, and a longer 26 mile path.  On Sunday afternoon I decided to conquer the second route.  I was pretty excited to have new roads to ride and I was completely confident that I would not get lost because not only did I have a map, but the roads were also marked with those great green arrows that would show me which way to go.

The first half of the ride went great, I was following those green arrows like a champ.  Then I started to get a little distracted and stopped paying such close attention to the arrows.  Bad idea.  As I went zooming past an intersection down a hill next to a field of cows I thought, “hum, I wonder if I was supposed to turn there?”  The handy-dandy map was in my back pocket so I pulled it out while I was riding.  There was no one around on that back country road to see my impressive feat of reading a map while riding a bike, but I will admit, the cows I was passing looked impressed.  In actuality the cows shouldn't have been impressed because it turns out it’s kind-of hard to read a map while riding a bike, and on top of that I didn’t know what road I was on.  So in truth, the map did me no good. 

I turned around and rode back to the intersection to find that little green arrow that would tell me which way to go.  The cows looked at me like I was a little strange as I rode back up the hill past them.  Fortunately by the time I found my green arrow, and learned that I had been going the correct direction the whole time, the cows had gone back to eating and they didn’t even notice me go past them for the third time.

After that I was more diligent about watching the green arrows.  Every time I saw a green arrow I was relieved and excited to know I was on the right path, but around mile marker 19 my feelings toward those green arrows started to change.  Instead of being happy about those arrows I was just becoming angry.  It seemed like every turn was leading me farther and farther away from everything I knew or recognized.  For a brief moment I thought that perhaps the green arrows were taking me off into some deserted field to kill me.   Yet, I continued to follow those arrows, and it’s a good thing I did because about one minute later I reached a crossroad that I recognized and all my faith in those green arrows was restored.  They led me home without any more conundrums.