I am pretty lucky in that, if nothing else, my current [real] joblessness affords me the ability to get out to ride on weekdays in between dad/husband duties and occasional freelance projects. While lucky, those rides can often be rushed or limited in length due to said responsibilities. Soccer-free Saturday’s usually are a bit more relaxed and allow for longer rides. THIS Saturday was not one of those days.
Wifey was finely back in town from a week of dropping knowledge in Baltimore. It was great to have her back and nice to head out for a ride knowing that she was home and chilling with B-Man. What wasn’t great was heading out into yet another windy day. I have learned to tolerate the wind, but some days it brings a hard-core mind-fornication with it.
I had mapped out a fat bike ramble that should have been around thirty-eight miles. As soon as I mounted the Fatterson and headed onto the dirt roads I knew that was not going to happen.
The wind was relentlessly blowing from the west and I hadn’t even made it to the first turn when I made the decision to blow through that turn, thus continuing on what is one of the shortest loops I do: coming in at just twenty freaking miles. It’s usually one of my go-to winter loops when it’s like fifteen degrees and snowing. Today however it would serve as an outlet for my slack.
I was not at all pleased with the fact that my Saturday ramble was going to be my shortest ride of the week. Cuss.
On a more positive note, the creak that had been driving me crazy on the Fatterson was gone. Looks like Friday’s trip down to Terry’s to have Napper check it out paid off. He recommended cutting down some of the super long Thomson post that I have. Saying that he’s noticed that he’s had some similar creaks when using a long post like mine and that cutting it down helped.
Once I got in the “this ride is gonna be short and suck” mode, I just tried to chill and enjoy snapping pics of rural Michigan with the Fuji X-T10. I am REALLY loving that camera and it’s proved worth every penny I paid out for it. Thank you people of eBay for buying all that used bike shit I had for sale so I could get it!
I briefly thought of trying to make up for my last two rides sucking donkey dong by going on Sunday, but in the end I said “fuck it” and laid around watching the North London Derby (COYS!) before I did my daily stability ball workout. A workout that has been helping my back pain a bit but given the layers of man-blub over my abdomen, the idea that it will ever make difference to my appearance is a joke.
I ended up with five rides this week, which for November in Michigan (and me) is pretty freaking sweet. Of course given the amount I ate and drank this weekend I’m certain that I made NO headway in the weight loss department.
Looking forward to another week of reasonably good November temperatures and more riding (I hope).
Later.