My plan for Saturday morning was this: get up, drink 2 to 14 cups of Bust Ass Coffee, eat some sort of lame breakfast, watch football (YES!!!) and then head out to ride some singletrack north of town. All of that was on course to happen until I checked the radar on Weather-dot-look-at-all-these-ads-and lame human interest videos-dot-com and saw that my trails appeared to be getting pissed down on with rain by the uncontrollable, loose bladder of Ma Nature.
Plan B was activated.
Plan B was to grab the El Mariachi and head out for a couple of hours or so of pavement and dirt roads. Obviously not my first choice (made fucking obvious by the fact that it’s Plan B, NOT Plan A. But dirt is dirt, miles are miles, calories burnt are calories burnt and a fat, crap cyclist is a fat, crap cyclist).
Upon fetching the El Mariachi (my current “go-to” gravel road bike that is really just a hardtail mountain bike) from the Not-So-Stankment®, I realized that in a raging fit of laziness [surprised?] I failed to rinse the bike off after Tuesday’s muddy dirt road ride. No big, I sort of like riding around with what amounts to an extra 2 to 5 pounds of dried cement on my frame. What’s a few extra pounds of dried cement on my bike when I’m already sporting at least 15 extra pounds of beer, pizza and general fuck-up-ness around my ever broadening and bouncing midriff??? Nothing!
Before I knew it, I was out the door and heading towards the dirt roads. The storms up north had kicked up a bitch of a wind, and I was heading right into it. I had to make the decision; ride pavement into a 20+ mph gusting wind for the first 10 miles or enjoy a tailwind over dirt during last few miles. I chose to get the misery over with in those first miles. It was about as fun as a forced vomit after a uninhibited, gin fueled, college dive bar romp (not that that has ever happened). This was the right decision, it also sucked windy, road ride ass!!
At the time it seemed like I was pedaling and going nowhere fast at 12 mph, but soon enough, I was out of that taint grinding, mind fucking headwind and onto dirt and gravel. It felt not unlike the tail end of a successful and messy enema.
Once out of the headwind, I had a new problem: rain.
It seems those northern rains were now creeping south like an anus smelling wedgie into our area and I was now dealing with some light rain. After a few wet miles, I made the not-so-executive decision to amend parts of the ride and get back home ASAP.
As it turned out, the hard rain never materialized and the light rain didn’t last long, so I then amended the amendment and proceeded as much as I could with my original Plan B (not to be confused with Plan A which didn’t happen).
All went well enough and I was soon home with just a few miles less than I had intended. The dirt roads remained dry (enough), I had fun, took some photos and burned some calories that I had added during Friday night’s beer/homemade pizza-fest and then added to again when our friends K&G had us over their crib for steaks on the grill later Saturday night. Win.
Sunday’s plan was to be much like Saturday’s Plan A, except not as long as that plan had been intended… and that is what happened.
As I intended to do Saturday, I headed north and rode some singletrack. It wasn’t that long (right about 15 miles) and it wasn’t that fast (you remember that we ARE talking about me, right?), but it was fun.
I rode, I had fun, I came home, I watched a bunch of DVRed footy, drank some beer and made more pizza.
Weekend complete.