Singletrack Spin

I had planned a ride for today. The forecast didn’t call for rain until later in the day, but instead I woke up to steady downpour (I did sleep in a little). By early afternoon the rain had turned to heavy snow, and the radar showed no sign of letting up until tomorrow.

So I stared at my trainer longer than I’d like to admit. Bike ready. Motivation… not quite there.

Snow outside. Vinyl inside. Not the ride I planned, but the one I got.

Instead, I wandered downstairs, pulled a record from the shelf, and dropped the needle on Led Zeppelin IV. There’s something about listening to classic rock (any music) on vinyl — the quiet crackle before the first note, the deliberate act of placing the needle, the way the album plays straight through.

Watching the record spin, I started thinking about repetition. Grooves. Lines. The way a needle follows the same path every time. With the trainer still lingering in the back of my mind, I wondered: what if, instead of a stationary trainer, we could ride the record player?

Carving along the outer edge. Hopping the tonearm. Coming back again to a favorite groove. A forest at the center like a record label. Trails etched into vinyl instead of dirt.

Some trails feel like that — grooves worn in by repetition. You return to the same berm, the same descent, the same stretch of twisty singletrack. The trail doesn’t change much. You do. Every ride feels slightly different, even when the lines are the same.

Like a favorite album worth playing over and over, some rides are meant to be ridden often.

Instead of clipping into the trainer, I woke my computer up. The snow kept falling. By the time I had to flip the record to side two, the first version of the image was on the screen — a different ride than the one I had planned.

I can’t wait until this beastly weather is behind us. For the first dry day when the dirt is just tacky enough. For the familiar turns of my local loop at Locust Shade Park. For reacquainting myself with the lines, the features on 95th St., and the rhythm that only returns after a few laps.

Until then, the record spins — now onto Physical Graffiti. And so does the idea of the next ride.

The idea eventually turned into a small design experiment: Singletrack Spin.