After feeling good on the bike yesterday, I found myself creeping around the house last night and early this morning like someone repeatedly hit me in the back with a baseball bat. Me thinks that my lower fat back did not take kindly to the hip stretches that I did yesterday, oddly enough, done to relieve me lower back pain! Typical me-ish-ness.
However back pain is something that can easily be dealt with when you down 1600 mg of ibuprofen (I’m joking, it was just 800). With the i-bup coursing through my clot-friendly veins I felt swell and decided that more dirt and gravel roads was just what Doctor Rock prescribed.
I wasn’t feeling quite as good as yesterday, but that was to be expected after a night filled with my normal crazy-assed dreams, a dog that needed out at 2 AM and some early morning errands that needed done: June seemed like a good time to get the snow tires off the xB.
While not as good as yesterday, the ride was still pretty good and I was aiming for between 40 and 50 miles on the day. I headed south of town, linked up most of my normal dirt roads, added in a few less traveled ones, hit some pavement and was generally having a good [enough] time.
The good times slowed a bit [literally] when I hit a long stretch on Pleasant Valley Road that was nearly ankle-deep with gravel and baby powder fine dirt. There was lots of fish tailing both uphill and down. There’s really nothing like being forced to pedal downhill.
It was about the time of the deep dirt and gravel that my Garmin 500 ran out of juice (Can’t remember the last time I had it on the USB for more than a few minutes). That was probably a good thing, at least I could avoid any confirmation that I was barely going ten miles per hour as I struggled through the deep dirt.
While it was nice to avoid having my fat face rubbed into the shitty fact that I was slow as fuck, I did hate not knowing how far I had gone. All I could do was base things on where I was, what I wanted to do and where I needed to get to.
With slight breeze coming out of the south, it was nice to cruise the last few miles on pavement back into Mt. Plezy without dropping a lycra encased nut.
Once home it was quick chat with Wifey who was home on her lunch break, a shower, and off for more errands. Later I was able to check Map My Ride (which for some reason always makes me think of the phrase “suck my d*c*) and confirmed today’s distance of just under 45 miles. Only 10 miles longer than yesterday but good enough. ‘Twas swell, sort of…
I LOVE my bike, but all that glitters is not gold…
Ironically, yesterday I mentioned my “glass half empty” personality and how that helped talk me out of an extra ten miles during yesterday’s ride. Well, today I DID do ten extra miles and with just a mile to go I broke yet another non drive side rear spoke [there was much mental cussing]. While I love, love, LOVE my Boone, I don’t know if me and the Bontrager TLR CX wheels are going to get along in the long-term. After breaking two spokes without reason and having them repaired on the first rear wheel, it was replaced by Trek, after the shop requested a warranty, feeling that no one should break two non drive side spokes without incident in less than 500 miles. The new wheel was retentioned and given all the love a new wheel should get by an expert mechanic [not me] and still–after a couple hundred more miles– I have broken yet another non drive side spoke. If the wheels can’t handle dirt, gravel and paved roads, how the hell are they expected to handle a season of cross racing (for those who take part in such activities)??
Oh well, I have over 780 miles on the Boone so far, if a few broken spokes are all I have to bitch about, I think that’s pretty good. Of course I’ll be tad happier when they stop breaking without me actually doing something to them. Luckily I am in the shop over the next days, so I should be able to get a fix on and see if I can find a solution to the spoke issue.
Broken spoke or not, it’s been a good week of riding thus far with a single track ride and about five hours of dirt road riding. I guess when the pavement ends, the fun really does begin.
Tomorrow should be fantastic with a mid day dentist appointment and then working at the shop, where I have been told that one of the owners is planning on covering me in chocolate and licking it off of me. I’m pretty sure they were joking, but I’ll take a change of clothes just in case.
Later.