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All Roads & Roman
On watching a son blaze his own trail.
At 4:45 a.m. the cold is visible. It appears then vanishes into the darkness as people move like shadows and shapes all around us. It is my place, my vocation, and my gift, to hold the flashlight as he lifts his bike onto the rack at the back of my van. It’s my honor to watch him with motherly concern and wide-eyed wonder that I played some role in creating this man-child, this athlete, who effortlessly hitches his bike to the car, ready to ride.
This bike has cost him everything. Every penny of hard-earned mowing money was taken, cash in hand, into the local bike shop where he negotiated with the owner, Tim, for $200 off the used 27-pound aluminum frame full-suspension bicycle he had his eye on. As an encourager of local youth cyclists, Tim wasn’t hard to convince, and Roman walked out of the shop that morning with his 11-year-old-bike in his 13-year-old-hands, giddy. This morning, his chilled but nimble fingers move slowly as he ratchets the straps down and secures the bike. I am watching every breath spill into the morning air, counting silently, as I have for his whole life, “one, two, three….”
It’s the first day of September 2019 and he’s riding the Dakota Five-0. This grueling single track mountain bike race opens registration to 700 participants and sells out in minutes. When Roman decided…
