It was a week and counting Thursday since I had last been out on the snow-covered dirt roads of Michiganderburgh. In that time I rocked a pretty unenjoyable head and chest cold which made spending time out in single digit temperatures a less than desirable option to blowing snot rockets on myself as I rode the trainer in the Stankment™.
A week ago tonight I got hit with my first major cold/cough/sinus issue of the year. I guess I was due. In that time I’ve not done a hell of a lot in the way of riding my bike outside. So far I believe the week’s total on “doing stuff” amounts to just three hours on the trainer. Unlike in years past, I have no early spring races coming up that have me anxious about my fitness, nor am I overly concerned about the lack of recent riding, especially since the weather has been ass monkey cold (I just made that phrase up, feel free to use it at your leisure). It’s been sunny nearly every day for a week, but cold enough that I am quite content to spin my miles away in the Stankment™ as snot oozes out my face like a lanced boil.
Whether this photos is a scream, a cry for help or a yawn from Jake (the dog), it makes no difference. It pretty much sums up the week thus far.
It’s been a while since I did an xc.cult:ure post here on the blog, but with the Sunshine Cup kicking off last week for the Euros and a good number of domestic races starting later this month, I thought it might be a good time to do one.
I have no idea why, but for years I have been saying to anyone that will listen (no one) that Grady Wilson from the old 70’s NBC TV show Sanford & Son is what the flu, head cold or similar ailment would look like if it took human form. I say that with not one ounce of disrespect to the late Whitman Mayo who portrayed him, but a fact’s a fact. Or at least an outlandish proclamation is one oddball’s point of view.
I bring all this up for a reason, that reason being that early Friday evening as I sat in the corner of a local junior high gymnasium watching B-Man take part in some winter soccer drills, I knew that Mr. Wilson was about to pay me a visit. In other words, I knew that illness was setting in.
Shit.
Since Tuesday’s 30+ mile per hour wind gusts and -25˚ wind chills moved on, we here in central Michigan have been treated to a few days of brilliant sunshine and blue skies. Of course the lack of cloud cover also means that temperatures are struggling to get out of the single digits until well after lunch. Unfortunately, my time slot to ride is around 10 a.m., when the thermometer is grunting, groaning and moaning to get above zero.
Because of those high winds earlier in the week and the frigid temps that followed, I spent the first three days of this week hunkered down in the Stankment™ putting in miles running on the treadmill and riding the trainer. You would think that after forty-three years of living in the cold winter climates of Pennsylvania and Michigan I would be used to the cold and snow and would have learned to love it. Nope.
Like many of my cycling friends in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota I try my best to be active through it, but unlike many of them, I always fail to embrace or love the winter. For me the result is always the same; I tolerate winter and merely try to survive it with my mind and liver still functioning properly and my pant size unchanged come spring.
But enough of that winter hating hyperbole, lets’ get to the winter riding hyperbole…
I took delivery of some new rubber today in the form of the WTB Nano TCS 2.1. I picked up the 700 x 40 version of the tires for the Jake The Snake late last fall and really liked the way they rolled on Michiganderburgh’s shit pavement, dirt and gravel roads. Sadly, I am less and less enamored with using a that cross bike for dirt road and gravel riding/racing and have been turning to my 2010 Salsa El Mariachi 99% of the time. So I decided to pick up some tubeless ready Nanos for the coming season of shit road riding. The wider girth and tubeless compatibility should be just what I am looking for. Hopefully they will be just as at ease on [dry] Michigan singletrack for days when I want to roll the hardtail.
Earlier today I had the idea to take a look back at one of my early endurance mountain bike races and rewrite the race report from my current perspective to see how different I might write it now, nine or ten years removed. I still plan on doing that in the near future, but as I read over some of those old posts on the Soiled Chamois v.1 blog I found myself sidetracked with some mild embarrassment and distaste for the way I wrote and approached blogging writing back then (mostly in the ’05 to ’08 era).
Like my grandmother** (God rest her soul) used to say, “Jason, no matter how much of a disgusting, big, fat, lazy, good for nothing douche bag you are, something good will happen sooner or later.” I guess she was sort of right, because after two weeks of failed attempts at riding outside, I FINALLY got out for a ride on Saturday. It was nothing great; a short 20 mile ride on dirt roads that alternated between snowpack, solid, bone breaking ice and bare dirt. Still, I was out riding shortly following one of the coldest spells of the year and I have to say, after temps that were in the -25 degree range, 30 degrees in the sun felt like a warm, heroine enema covered in chocolate and espresso, scented with that Victoria’s Secret perfume that strippers wear. Mmmmm(ish)…
I didn’t ride today. Or yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that, or the day before that, or the day before that, or the day before that, or the day before that, or the day before that, or the day before that, or the day before that, or the day before that, or the day before that. The day before THAT I did though.
Sweet Jesus it’s been two weeks since I rode my bike outside!!
