Archive | September, 2014

Catching Up (with opinions)

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The past few days have been filled with three things: beer, football (er, soccer) and dirt. In other words, three things I dig.

I skipped riding on Thursday to drive down to beautiful downtown Alma, Michigan and pay a visit to Terry’s Cycle where I picked up a Trek Farley 8 demo bike. I spent some time getting it dialed and had it out on the trails Friday morning for a lap at MMCC.

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Trek’s Farley 8 is SOOOOOO light compared to my heavy assed Pugs! It really is an awesome bike… sort of.

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Rolling Along

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The thing that sucks about the mythical land of Michiganderburgh is the lack of open space we have.

I’m trying to make up for last week’s time off the bike by getting in what I can this week. So far I’m up to about 6:20 of gravel roads and singletrack. Sadly, my aging, talentless, flabby, all too often beer fueled body, on the rebound from last week’s illness, is feeling every minute I’ve put in thus far– even today’s 32 mile ride on the flatter gravel roads north of town.

Since I’m tired and have important things to do like lay on the couch, watch soccer, fall asleep for an hour, drag my ass up to my bed, stare at the ceiling for two hours wondering how I became such a useless, hollow, shell of a man, who contributes nothing to society, fall into a fitful sleep and get up at 6 a.m. and do it all over again (whatever “it” is), I will just post up some pics in a gallery below. They’re from today’s ride, so it’s dirt roads, barns and shit like that. You know the routine.

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Not So White

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It’s been a while since I’ve been mentally challenged enough to bore you with talk about food and my Cat 5 Cooking, which is my less than witty way of saying that I’m a cyclist who likes to cook; mostly foods that are white trash, bastardizations of proper foods. Case in point, Wednesday’s vat of Not So White Soiled Chamois Chili.

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The Falling of Fall

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Apparently today is the day that Fall falls. I’m OK with that, especially since the temps are nice, there’s plenty of green left on the trees and very few leaves are covering the trail. However it seems that the acorns don’t give a shit about what the leaves do and decided to go ahead and rain down upon the trails. This made for some interesting handling in a few hard pack corners. It was sort of funny to be riding along and hear things bouncing off my helmet.

Welcome autumn, feel free to stick around as long as you want.

Finally Back At It

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After six days off the bike due to illness and a quick weekend get-a-way to Chicago with my family unit, I was FINALLY back on the bike today. If you’re reading this blog you most likely ride bikes, OR you got here Googling photos to satisfy some bizarre, crap covered chamois fetish you have. You disgust me! Welcome to the blog.

No matter how you got here, bike ridin’ type folk know that time off the bike sucks, and that it sucks even more when you’re off the bike due to coughing up snot and sludge for five days. Most will also know that the first ride back from such a break simultaneously rocks and sucks.

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A Lack of Crush

This week has really lived up to the anti-hype. I’ve been sick since Monday and got out for just ONE short ride on Tuesday before things really went south. As of this morning (Friday) I am slightly better (from shitty to crappy, nudging my way slowly towards poopy) but with no ride planned. Oh well, it’s a head/chest cold, it will pass… or I will, either way it’s a win.

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More Bad Ideas

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Earlier this month I thought it would be a good idea to take a 30+ pound borrowed fat bike out for a ride on dirt roads. That wasn’t a bad idea, but it wasn’t a great one either. Since I am not one to avoid doing stupid things (in fact stupidity is sort of my thing), I one upped myself today and took my 40+ pound Surly Pugsley out on energy sapping muddy dirt roads… while sick. How bad could it be?

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When Two Became Three

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My plan to take a couple days off the bike for family stuff and to rest a slightly sore knee has rapidly turned into three days off the bike after coming down with an illness of some sort on Sunday. I woke up yesterday a bit achy, rocking a cough, a raspy throat and little to no desire to ride. That illness and apathy carried over to today and was compounded by a depressing, cold drizzle most of the day.

The weather is suppose to be better tomorrow, so I am hopeful that medicating, resting and hydrating today will allow me to head north and roll some fatties on wet and sandy ORV and snowmobile trails for a few hours, or at very least get out on the mud bog dirt roads outside of town.

I could blather on about some sort of bike crap, but I’m opting to turn in early instead.

Photo: Soiled Chamois file photo from an ORV road fat bike ride early this summer (or is it “last summer” now?).

The Rebound Ride

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After last week’s brilliant (for me) return to the saddle and near daily riding, this week has be quite the opposite. As of mid morning today (Saturday) I’ve ridden twice this week. Tuesday’s 42 mile road/gravel ride and Friday’s quick “better than the trainer” 23 mile gravel ride. Sigh.

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