Ghost Rides and Holy Glides
Opening Scripture
“After the candles guttered and the costumes slept, the riders felt a presence at their side; not fear, but fellowship, and the path answered softly beneath a single wheel.” — Book of Bearings 11:02
I. After the Lanterns Fade
Wheelievers, the jack-o’-lanterns are puckered, the candy tax has been levied by responsible parents, and the wind has filed its official complaint with the trees. We stand in the cool of the year, where the night is honest and the asphalt remembers. And we say calmly, together, we are not alone.
No, not the spooky kind. The communal kind. The kind that shows up when the charger is just out of reach and someone slides a power strip across the café floor like a peace treaty. The kind that straightens your stance when the path asks a grown-up question.
Because somewhere between the first carve and the last, those who came before us, ancestors by blood, by mentorship, by that stranger who yelled “knees!” at exactly the right moment, step out of the shadows and roll at our side. Call them ghosts if you must; we call them the communion of bearings.
II. The Communion of Bearings (On Riding With Our Ancestors)
I want you to imagine, for a moment, that your grandmother who swore by sensible shoes and good sidewalks is gliding beside you, her posture impeccable, her helmet decisively not optional. Imagine the uncle who fixed everything with a crescent wrench and a story, quietly chatting torque specs with your axle. Imagine the neighbor whose porch light was a lighthouse on hard days, now blinking as an amber LED that says, “Plug in, child.”
Our ancestors do not cancel physics; they respect it. They whisper lessons in the language of reality:
Occam’s Razor for Line Choice: The simplest line that prevents dental work is the best line.
Bayes for Autumn: Given dew point and leaf density, update your prior: assume slippery until proven otherwise.
Second Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy takes your range; good maintenance bargains it back.
Maxwell’s Demon: Will not sort your gravel. Please stop asking.
And when pushback arrives, the white-gloved usher with the firm palm, they nod. Because restraint, properly applied, is not a defeat. It’s a strategy. It’s the quiet mathematics of getting home.
III. A More Perfect Glide (Call and Response)
Tonight I’m asking you to believe, not in magic, not in metrics divorced from meaning, but in the better angels of our contact patch. To believe that a gentler input can write a braver story. That we can enter slower than pride wants so that we may exit faster than fear expects. That when we see someone scanning the darkness for an outlet, we make room on the strip.
We can make a parking lot feel like a parish.
We can make a bike path feel like a boulevard of second chances.
We can make a simple carve feel like a promise kept.
Can we ride with patience in the turns and courage on the straights?
Can we keep our PSI seasonally honest and our footpad free of poetic half-truths?
Can we move through this city—this messy, glorious, leaf-strewn city—like people who know they’re part of something bigger than speed?
IV. The Litany of Gentle Progress (A Short Pilgrim’s Guide)
Before we go, receive these modest practices, the small gears that turn big hopes:
Set Your Season: Calibrate PSI to temperature; let comfort be your creed and contact your covenant.
Tell the Pad the Truth: Heel and toe. Ghosts enjoy poetry; the footpad does not.
Honor the Deacon: When pushback raises the nose, let your heart bow. Mercy is faster than recovery.
Tithe the Downhill: Feather the brake; let regen make accountants of our descents.
Share the Strip: Two ports, two people. At 80%, say, “I’m abundant,” and mean it.
Read the World: If it shines, assume moisture; if it shimmers, assume oil; if it’s beautiful, assume a trap with excellent lighting.
Wave Like You Mean It: A raised palm at dusk is infrastructure for the soul.
Do these small things, and watch how the city changes its posture toward you. Not all at once. But enough.
Wheelievers: Grip without slip!
Closing Words
“The living and the dead roll together, one in memory, one in practice, until the path itself remembers our names.” — Lamentations of Nosedive 9:4
May your bearings purr, your firmware be current, your PSI be seasonally sanctified. May your ancestors’ steadiness steady you; may your steadiness steady someone else. And when the night is longer than you planned, may a humble outlet appear exactly where kindness would put it.
Go now in ghost rides and holy glides, wheelievers—quiet as good judgment, bright as a charging LED, and headed, together, toward home.
A-Wheel-men.
