Midstokke: Two sacred hours of riding bikes in a barn

On Saturday mornings at 7 , there is a barn that turns into a spin studio.

Bleary-eyed women (and the occasional brave husband) stumble out of their cars, hoist bikes onto their shoulders, and make their way into a horse barn. Inevitably, the majority of them are carrying hand-woven baskets filled with snacks, bike shoes and dry layers of clothing.

It seems an unlikely place for a row of road bikes to whir in place with a soundtrack ranging from Cat Stevens to the Beastie Boys. One must first navigate around a stack of alfalfa, past a wall of tack and some salt blocks, and past the fluffy barn cat who appears to only reluctantly lease his space to us.

Beyond all of this is a room in which a supply truck of horse-things has exploded: blankets, ropes, tall boots, more blankets, stall mats, various bits of lumber, buckets, and a washer and dryer circa 1982. They’ve migrated away from the wall and determined their preferred location, dragging laundry baskets along.

Among all of this is a smattering of stationary bike trainers, some mounted, some awaiting their own steed, a two-by-four perched on the floor for the front tire. A basket of various bike tools sits on saw horses. A tool box and pump move their way from cyclist to cyclist according to today’s maintenance needs.

One at a time, each tire begins spinning and the waking chatter of the group raises a few decibels until we can be heard over the hum and whiz of wattage.

This is our private little church in many ways. A knitting group of more sweat and swearing. A reading club of exchanged meme humor. A secret society of raising teenagers. A federation of females bravely pioneering middle age one revelation and revolution at a time.

And while our bikes are in place, oh the places we go!

On this particular Saturday, still wearing my thick beanie and a sweatshirt over two more layers, legs warming up slowly, I’m ranting about the patriarchy. I’ve long avoided a direct acceptance of its existence, sidestepping it with my own strong personality and penchant for power tools. As the sole woman on a construction site these last months, however, its influence and annoyance are undeniable.

After agreeing with me to a price on a scope of work with the drywallers, the manager hung up the phone and called my husband to renegotiate. The finish carpenter tried to explain to me why the laws of physics don’t apply. The tile guy needs to be told the same thing over and over and over because apparently my female voice is an octave too high to be comprehended.

“Ugh!” we all groan in unison and agreement. “I’m so over the patriarchy!”

But we’re not a boy-bashing club. Our conversations meander like our pace: We grieve the untimely loss of a community member and mourn for his wife and children. We empathize with the member who has put her mother in a care facility and wrestled daily with the complicated burden of this transition. We celebrate the achievements of someone’s kid who is ski racing in Sweden this weekend.

We talk about our husbands, our weight, the inevitable tug of gravity on our aging bodies, the races we’ve signed up for, our training, the cultural significance of movies like “American Fiction” and “Dune,” what we’re making for dinner, our successes and failures and fears. From the narrow saddles of our bikes, we share our lives for two sacred hours of unlikely friendships in that unlikely gym.

At some point, the music gets louder and someone tells us we’re going to spend the next 20 or 40 or 60 minutes riding much harder, which we all commiserate about before we drop our heads and gears, and grind it out. Our dogs wander by with wagging tails. The barn cat pays us and them no attention.

“Ten more minutes!” says one of us.

“Skip this song,” says another.

A bag of snacks gets passed around.

And in this way, without moving anywhere in particular, we move through our lives together.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com.