I seriously had to consult a calendar to see when the last time I rode was, it was Thursday. I rode dirt roads on the Boone, it was OK. I took some photos of birds along the way. They were pretty OK too.
Archive | August, 2016
The Painful 5
There was rain in the forecast again for Wednesday, and I really didn’t feel like getting caught out in the gritty mud and rain on the bike again, so I opted for a post-chiropractor trip to Deerfield Park for a four to five mile hike with my camera.
Saddle Time
After Sunday’s muddy, rain-soaked, dirt road slog on the Fatterson, I was off the bike on Monday to let things dry out, go to the chiropractor, get some things done, and take advantage of the cooler, dryer conditions to get the lawn mowed, thus freeing up more time for later in the week for outdoor hijinks.
Rain Soaked Blubber
After three months of hot, dusty, dry weather, we finally had some heavy on/off again rains Saturday evening. Because of that I had resound myself to not riding on Sunday, or riding the fatty to plow through the soft sand and mud on the dirt roads. While the first the first option was extremely appealing, I opted for the latter.
Lost
My Garmin 500 shit the bed like Spud from Trainspotting last week, and no longer mounts up on my Mac. Despite hours of Googling, scouring bike forums, multiple resets, bitching, moaning, and nearly smashing it to pieces with a meat hammer, it just refuses to cooperate. Since then I’ve felt completely lost on the where’s, when’s, and what’s of my riding. Yes, those rides could probably be summed up with words like crap, crapper, and crappier, but I like to actually see the multiple layers of statistical crap on my computer screen.
Not Dead (Lucky-ish Me)
After last Thursday’s OK-ish short and quick double loop on Sally’s Trail, I returned to dirt roads on the Fatterson on Friday. My chiropractor recommended limiting myself to shorter rides, but since it’s hard for a fat, crap, cyclist to make his short rides even shorter, I somehow managed to ride nearly thirty miles of dirt roads on the fatty. Not sure that qualifies as “long” in any world other than the one in which the person in charge of my spine lives; I rode it nonetheless, and it felt OK.
Lack Of & Making Progress
Towards the end of my Tuesday dirt road ride, I found that I was getting some of the hip pain that I usually get when mountain biking. It wasn’t enough to make the ride painful, or get me all pissed off, but I knew it was there. I put it out of my mind and made some plans to ride the Fatterson on Sally’s Trail on Wednesday, since I had to go down the shop to get my Superfly that was getting some love from Napper who was fixed the pedal threads one of my crank arms. Yeah, only I could jack up the threads on the crank installing/uninstalling pedals. I shouldn’t be allowed to touch tools.
Corn Sniffing Parts I & II
Dirt and gravel road riding has continued this week with a 30+ mile late afternoon ride on Monday and a 30 mile early-ish morning ride on Tuesday. I rode the Boone north of town both days, and most–but not all–of the roads were thankfully void the deep washboard ruts that are currently prevalent to the south.
The corn is huge right now, with most fields towering over me as I ride. I’ve ridden past corn fields for my whole life, but it wasn’t until I moved here that I really noticed how much you can actually smell the corn as you ride by. It’s as if I have my nostrils right down to an ear of corn sniffing it like I was doing lines of coke. Or something like that.
Better Focus
Sunday morning I sat at the computer and wrote a blog post about Saturday’s mountain bike ride. Then Wifey came into my office with some sort of failing DVD workout drama and interrupted me. I never did get around to actually publishing that post, and it was probably for the best. See, Saturday’s ride on singletrack didn’t go so well in the back and hip department, and I aborted after about 7 or 8 miles of riding. This left me in a hell of a funk, swearing that I would not even attempt to ride singletrack the rest of 2016, that all that physical therapy was a waste of time and money, and that I should just spend my Saturdays sitting in a comfy chair watching soccer, drinking until I pass out, blah, blah, blah, blah. And most of that stuff is true (especially the blah, blah, blah part).
Regardless of how poor the ride was, or how disappointed I was, I decided there was no point in spreading that self-pity around, and to focus on the fact that I had three rides under my expanding belt before I headed to MMCC to ride on Saturday, and those rides were just fine, so just get out to ride instead of sitting around bitching about one ride.
Three Day Blur
The week thus far has been a three day blur of riding, house shit, chores, heat, humidity, traveling, soccer practices, and AC repairmen. None of that is all that bad except for the AC needing repaired during one of the hottest summers I’ve experienced in my almost six years here in Michigan. Thankfully we had some sort of appliance, warranty bullshit and that covered the cost of the repair. Now just to hope that the thing holds on for the summer without having to have the unit replaced!