As some one who will use a bicycle some 360 days a year on the frenzied streets of the Twin Cities, often hauling over two-hundred pounds of coffee to this place and that, it’s no surprise that modern-day luxuries are generally lost on me. It’s not that I am an ascetic trying to find greater meaning in life through denial of television privileges and red meat. It’s just that the temporal stimulation such things bring is fleeting and leaves the mind longing for more of the same.

I’m going somewhere with this so bear with me as I set the scene.

September 12th was about as easy a Sunday morning as any we’ve had in Minnesota all year. The sun was bright, the sky cloudless and open for business. All that was on my personal agenda was the St. Paul Classic Bicycle Tour. I threw some stuff into my backpack and set out for the St. Thomas campus on my fixie to meet up with the rest of the Peace Coffee crew.

The route of the St. Paul Classic winds along the river, past downtown, up to Mounds Park, and back to St. Thomas via Wheelock and Como Parkways. A more scenic route through the city you’d be hard-pressed to find. But, more significantly, only bicycle traffic is allowed during the duration of the ride.

No longer were we cyclists supplicants to the hysteria, noise, and intimidation incurred upon us by all the gas pedals of the world. Our minds wandered, our shoulders relaxed, we wondered when the next food stop would come along, we slalomed the painted dashes of the center line. Our liberation was upon us: the roads were ours by decree and police officers waved us through red lights while long lines of cars waited and waited.

Then there were the food stops: seething masses of people dropping their bikes on the ground and wondering around with a vague notion, I want a cookie, somehow physiologically rendered upon their visage. Indeed, huge boxes of cookies and muffins were proffered as well as various organic fruits. Each stop (I think there were four over the 35-mile route, including the one at St. Thomas) also featured live music, good live music, should one feel the need to languish for a bit.

The morning passed quickly. We were returning to St. Thomas before I realized that we were in the home stretch. After saying my good-byes, grabbing a couple of organic pluots from one tent and accepting free samples of some Aveda products from another reality set in again. I was back on Marshall, back into the ring. Cars were everywhere, my torpor snapped clean away, and the innate tenseness returned.

Here we return to the original premise of luxury.

Imagine some one, say your mother, places gently in your hand a fine Viennese truffle. She tells you that it’s special, crafted for generations by one family through processes they aren’t sharing. Your mother received a box of these truffles which she’s hiding, but she’s given you this one, inviting you to sense its delicate perfection.

So you bite into it. Instantly your neurons are firing like crazy. Dopamine fills your mind and your thinking how great life is. The second bite finishes off the truffle and the genius of that Austrian family of recluses.

I use this analogy not to discourage your pursuit of pleasurable experiences, but to remind you of the humble beauty of the human spirit. The St. Paul Classic is an event of massive logistical planning. It exists because thousands of people want it to and it serves to demonstrate the strength of the cycling community in the Twin Cities. So by all means, join us in the ride next year. Bring your friends and their friends and a camera to experience however briefly what a city feels like without so many pesky cars around.

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