Burning Daylight

I have been three days running riding the bike, trying to return since a layoff or practical quitting since the passing of Roger Sessler, who pretty much I could count on to show up for a ride. And they were not just the ten mile slow rides I am struggling through lately. Seventy and more. Up to Moniac in Georgia, just to see the pretty clerk. Down to Wellborn where we would stop for a drink and ice cream, catching up on all the store clerks lives.
When I first started out with Roger, he was patient, yet stern, scolding me when I followed too close, did not maintain a good draft, did not signal properly, was too abrupt in my moves, etc. He was not one to linger and go my pace, it was up to me to keep up, and he had no problem leaving me.
In the later years, it was Roger who was now the slow one and we would linger, waiting for him to catch up after struggling up a hill. I recall the Horsefarm Hundred's we rode, where I struggled to maintain his pace, falling out on the side of the road by mile twenty-five, hobbling through the ride alone. And to Rogers last century, him to struggling last with Teri Harty pacing him.
There are so many whom I miss, who no longer ride or are now too fast for me the slowing one. So I ride alone. It is best that way, for I often have to coast and glide along, catching my wind, adjusting my seat that is oh so sore, until hopefully the old muscles will respond and once again carry me to Moniac and maybe even another Horsefarm One Hundred this October in Roger's memory.