I was putting together, albeit quite a bit late, my DALMAC photo frame for this past year and I was struck with some pretty good feelings, thinking back over the years. This year my wife featured in more than half of the photos because she rode with us a lot more – especially on the last day. In fact, the last day we completely changed around our normal day – we completely skipped the last 26 miles of the day – we didn’t even make it to Mackinaw City… We did what refer to as the tunnel of trees for my wife, so she could see the unadulterated beauty of one of the best 100k rides in all of Michigan – the upper and lower coastline run, in an out-and-back starting at and returning to the Petosky State Park, heading through Harbor Springs, and turning around in Goodhart to head back…

Then, thinking back on the three previous DALMAC’s

…then all of the other places we’ve been, simply to ride our bikes with some select friends…

Without discounting the truly important things, recovery, meeting, dating, marrying and creating a life with my wife, the birth of my children, I mean the truly important things in life, cycling with my friends and club has added a dimension of happiness to my life that was simply unexpected.

I always viewed fitness as something I begrudgingly had to do to stay healthy until I hopped on my first adult bike at 41-years-old.  I don’t bother worrying about “fitness” anymore, fitness comes naturally with my hobby.

And that’s as good as it gets.