The Rise Up Ride: Day 29-31, Wu Wei Days: Waiting For the Pass
Date: 21-23 May 2021
Start Location: Buffalo, WY
End Location: Buffalo, WY
Distance: 0 km
It was probably from watching Westerns as a kid that I learned the perils of "getting froze crossing over the pass." It was always about timing. "They tried too soon, poor souls," or, "they left too late, poor dears." After three days covering 312 km between Spearfish and the Buffalo, I've gone as far as I can riding west without going up. And up means over Highway 16, linking Buffalo and Ten Sleep, punching through the snow-capped Bighorn Mountains over Powder River Pass at 2946 meters (9666 ft). For sure I'm better equipped than the settlers, who didn't have the Weather Underground app, live webcams showing real-time road conditions at the US 16 Big Horn County Line, and a SPOT satellite transponder with a button that activates the GEOS Search and Rescue operations. But, I'm still balancing on two wheels while moving a bunch of gear and myself up and over a formidable geological barrier that is practiced over thousands of years defeating poor, dear souls who didn't get the timing right crossing over the pass.
The timing hasn't been right. It's been cold and rainy at the Rodeway Inn (1,416 m/4646 ft) for the last two days while I rest my jets, waiting for conditions 1530 meters (5020 ft) higher on the pass to improve. The WYDOT cameras showing conditions on the pass are, "temporarily under repairs" but the cameras down the pass towards Ten Sleep show wet slick roads this morning, With warming weather today and no rain or snow in the forecast tomorrow, the timing should be right in the morning to climb and descend safely from Buffalo to Ten Sleep.
Wu Wei is a concept at the core of Taoism that is in full effect while striving to stay in harmony and at one with the awesome rhythms of the natural world. Containing both "action" and "inaction" it can mean using strategic passivity to find the right moment to act with and not against nature towards your objective.
Tomorrow I'll ride. Today I'll wait for the moment by going all Pirsig, cleaning my bike.
"The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Shimano Dura-Ace 9100 Groupset with the FC-9000 Compact Crankset front end and a mountainbike backend: 50x34 Shimano XT RD-M8000 Rear Derailleur with a Wolftooth Tanpan and a Shimano XT M8000 11-speed cassette (11-42)g
I'm wiping down the Tanpan, the "mullet" device that connects the racing front end to the greater gearing options of a mountainbike derailleur in the back by looping the needed extra cable pull between two barrel adjusters. Geeky bike porn.
“When we learn to work with our own Inner Nature, and with the natural laws operating around us, we reach the level of Wu Wei. Then we work with the natural order of things and operate on the principle of minimal effort. Since the natural world follows that principle, it does not make mistakes. Mistakes are made–or imagined–by man, the creature with the overloaded Brain who separates himself from the supporting network of natural laws by interfering and trying too hard.
When you work with Wu Wei, you put the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. No stress, no struggle. Egotistical Desire tries to force the round peg into the square hole and the square peg into the round hole. Cleverness tries to devise craftier ways of making pegs fit where they don’t belong. Knowledge tries to figure out why round pegs fit into round holes, but not square holes. Wu Wei doesn’t try. It doesn’t think about it. It just does it. And when it does, it doesn’t appear to do much of anything. But Things Get Done.
When you work with Wu Wei, you have no real accidents. Things may get a little Odd at times, but they work out. You don’t have to try very hard to make them work out; you just let them. [...] If you’re in tune with The Way Things Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time. Later on you can look back and say, “Oh, now I understand. That had to happen so that those could happen, and those had to happen in order for this to happen…” Then you realize that even if you’d tried to make it all turn out perfectly, you couldn’t have done better, and if you’d really tried, you would have made a mess of the whole thing.
Using Wu Wei, you go by circumstances and listen to your own intuition. “This isn’t the best time to do this. I’d better go that way.” Like that. When you do that sort of thing, people may say you have a Sixth Sense or something. All it really is, though, is being Sensitive to Circumstances. That’s just natural. It’s only strange when you don’t listen.
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