Sometimes you get up and go for a bike ride. Sometimes you don’t. Today I did not, but I did stick to my almost daily plan of doing something outside and doing something creative by going for a quick three-mile hike in the woods in between bits of real life.
After getting up this morning, I set about drinking coffee, watching football and writing a crap blog post about yesterday’s ride. I finished the post by contemplating a fat bike ramble or a Better Than The Trainer Ride™. In the end I opted for the 26.5 mile B.T.T.T.R™ that was 98% pavement.
This week I found myself doing more road riding than in I have in a while. Well, not real skinny tire, hi-viz kit wearing, cafe stopping, kilometer talking, take your pull and follow the unwritten rules road riding, but rides in which I spent a higher percentage of time on paved roads (or what passes for paved in Michigan) than on dirt and gravel. Case in point: yesterday’s forty-six mile roll through the mythical rural landscapes of Mighiganderburgh atop the Boone.
My ride today sort of got foiled, but for good reasons. Well, not GOOD reasons, but reason. I’ve been struggling to find some parts for a sliding shelf that broke in our pantry for a week. After exhausting the big box hardware stores in the area I finally took the time to stop in a local kitchen and cabinet place see if they knew what the part was even called, if they had any, and if so, where could I find said part. Well, they didn’t know what to actually call the part, but they dug around in an old parts bin and found me two parts that were ALMOST what I needed and gave them to me nuthin’.
In any event, the parts were close enough to what I needed and all I had to do was put add a little 1/8 shim (actually taken from the two broke parts) for it to work. The fix is pretty ghetto right now, but the drawer is back in pantry and it slides; for now that will do. At least I’m on the trail of what the part actually IS and should be able to order some soon to make a more permanent ghetto fix.
I’m not one to complain about weather (that’s a lie, I love to bitch about it), but the goddamn sun could shine again any day now! Today is the fourth day in a row that dark gray skies and dank, unusually chilly August temperatures draped over mid-Michigan like an octogenarian hobo’s scrotal sack. The lack of sun is normal back in my old state, but from my experiences with Michigan the past five summers, this is pretty unusual. Of course in two months I’ll be bitching about the fact that I got snowed on during my ride or crashed on ice. A goddamn meteorological malcontent is what I am (amongst other things).
Busch Light on dirt.
My Monday morning was spent in my doctor’s office for a six month check up on my blood thinners and to get some blood work done. After that I drove all over Mount Pleasant looking for (and failing to find) some replacement parts for sliding drawers in the panty. I probably could have squeezed a ride in there somewhere, but to tell you the truth the low, dark clouds that hung over central Michigan, gusting winds, and temps in the high fifties just made me want to drink coffee and curse the reality of being a home owner. HOUSE GODS, WHY DO YOU MOCK ME??
This post has even less to do with cycling than most of my posts do these days. The closest you’ll get to cycling here is that nearly all of the photos in the post (except for the one above) were taken while riding my bike. The following has to do with my continuing forays into shooting photos with old point and shoot film cameras. Instead of rehashing all the reasons why I tracked down an Olympus MJU II (also known as the Stylus Epic) camera several months ago, I will just refer you to the posts The MJU Project No. 1, The MJU Project No. 2.
Now on with this post…
When I woke up this morning I had no REAL intention of riding. I figured that I would sit around, watch a ton of soccer football all day (BPL, Bundesliga and maybe even the lackluster MLS), drink some adult beverages, eat some white trash Mexican food, then head to bed, where I would sleep like shit for eight hours before starting another cursed week on this shit hole of a planet on Monday.
I had to spend two days off the bike as I took care of a variety of house issues that included HVAC repairmen and appliance delivery drivers. Oh well, life happens. With that said, I was anxious to get out for a ride on Friday, but I was also geeked to spend some time snapping some pics with my DSLR. This would normally call for one of my fat bike rambles in which I roll at a slug’s pace around Michiganderburgh snapping pics of rural dirt road life as I see it. However, I just wasn’t craving a slug’s pace, so I brought my 2010 Salsa Ti El Mariachi out of retirement, put my Porcelain Rocket DSLR Slinger on it, and headed out for a ride.
I took advantage of this morning’s cloud cover to avoid the blazing sun and get out for a ride before the “fit but fat” thwarting Michiganderburgh heat and humidity had a chance to do any sort of thwarting to a fat man such as myself. To paraphrase/fuck up an old adage– I was making hay while the sun DIDN’T shine. Or at least riding slowly by hay while the sun didn’t shine.
