2011. Tina Brubaker. My cyclocross spirit animal. 

At each fork in the road in Nobeyama, Japan that day we took whichever road looked worse. Pavement to gravel to dirt to thick, tracked-out mud.

We kept going.

Finally, we turned up a road that looked suspiciously like it might not actually be a road. A few pedalstrokes in a tiny speck of a very far away man made a big X with his arms and held them out in front of his face: universal sign for turn back now.

On the way home we ate mysterious salty Japanese snacks from the 7-11 on the corner and I sat in her draft and marveled at how her golden bike managed to match her kit, her hair and the the endless fields around us.