As I mentioned yesterday, I needed to break free from my standard multi-surface loop and do something different. One idea was to venture out for another one of my fat bike photo rambles on the Farley (with all do respect to Gnat). When I woke up this morning that seemed to be the ride plan that produced the most girth to my loins–so that’s what I did.
With Wifey out of town until late Wednesday night, I won’t be working any hours at the shop until late in the week. For while B is old enough to stay extended hours on his own, over nine hours on his own, with the closest parent 25 minutes away, is a bit extreme. No big deal, this gives me a chance to catch up on stuff around the house, hang out with B, and get a few 30-35 mile multi-surface loops in my legs.
Last night I was once again banished to the Chamber of Farts: the guest bedroom where Wifey forces me to sleep when my digestive system decides that it wants to spew forth noxious gas time and time again for eight to twelve hours (which is pretty much every night). So I was pleasantly surprised that Wifey chose to enter my stank chamber early this morning for some snuggle time. Sadly it was NOT an early morning booty call, but it was pretty delicious that she braved the heavily scented C.o.F. to be with me before flying out to D.C. later in the morning.
Initial snuggles were followed by a failed attempts (by me) to turn the snuggle fest into something more, which was followed by chatting about the coming day and week. “What do you have planned today?” she asked. “Nothing much, I’d like to get a mountain bike ride in, but with you gone I might end up sticking closer to home.” We chatted a bit more and discussed how I could probably get in one big lap at MMCC and B would be OK. Then I farted, Wifey got pissed off, left the room, I confiscated the extra pillows, waved the eye watering stink away with the sheet and went back to sleep for another hour.
Wifey had to got into work this morning to make sure some sort of legal, shmegal software worked properly for her .gov people. She was also expecting a FedEx package at home containing a new work credit card for her upcoming trip our nation’s capital on Sunday. Since she couldn’t be in two places at one time, I had to lay around and wait for Mr. FedEx Man.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, the bike shop I work at part-time has quite a bit of old mountain bike race memorabilia. One of the owners used to be the mechanic for the now extinct Volvo-Cannondale Mountain Bike Team, so the shop features a ton of stuff from the V/C team as well as some photos, jerseys and what not from other racers of the era.
Even though I didn’t work yesterday, I still didn’t ride (call me slack, it’s OK). I needed to catch up on what seemed like a million different things around the house as well as prepare for my buddy Dave and his family to stop by for dinner and to spend the night. I have been friends with Dave for fifteen years or more; we used to work together at the newspaper back in Pittsburgh before he moved to Florida, I was “co” best man in his wedding and we still have a strong relationship via texts and email. Sadly his wife’s grandmother recently passed away and she was being buried in her home state of Michigan. Since all their family were coming up for the services, they extended their trip to see some of Michiganderburgh’s sites and to stop by and see us (a true Michigan sideshow attraction) before heading back to F-L-A this morning. It was awesome to catch up with him and to finally meet his two kids in person.
It seems like it’s been forever since I last rode my bike (or at least a week).
I have to say, I’m pretty lucky to work in a shop a few days a week that has various bits of UCI and NORBA (remember them?) downhill and cross-country mountain bike racing history hanging about. It’s fun to walk around the shop and see the bikes, frames, kits and number plates from the various legends of our sport. It’s also fun to hear the stories and anecdotes from a wrench that worked for one of the top teams during mountain bike racing’s heyday.
A morning quick post that is pretty much void of cycling…
Last night we had another evening of heavy, better grab a life jacket type rain. In my opinion, here in Michigan, we get less rain on daily basis than I was used to dealing with in western PA, but when we do get rain, we get freaking RRRRAIN! It seems to just freaking pour down thick ropes of water.
