In Monday’s post I commented about the amount and severity of the pot holes on the dirt roads north of town. In the back of my mind I was thinking that with the roads this bad, the county would surely be dumping some fresh dirt and doing some grading to the roads soon. I thought about how much better the 35c X’Plor USH tires would handle the roads when they were finished. What I didn’t count on was riding on the day they were actually dumping and grading that fresh dirt and gravel.
Not all of the roads were getting freshened up of course, but the stretches that were made for some slow going uphill and some death grip ass puckering on the descents as I alternated between trying to stay in fresh car tire tracks and fishtailing through deep dirt.
The day felt more like a September day rather than early November; the sun was out, the sky was blue and the temperatures were once again in the low seventies. As an added bonus the morning wind was nearly non-existent. So, even with the sketchy, fresh dirt, it was a perfect sort of day for a ride.
In past years, November has not only marked the beginning of two dreaded months of Holiday stress, depression, visiting, traveling and merriment misery, but also the beginning of off-season “training” for the coming race season (or the reasonably facsimile of racing that I once did). Since I don’t exactly race anymore, the only thing I have to worry about is controlling the gelatinous bag of flesh that creeps ever closer to cresting and spilling over the waistband of my $20 comfort fit jeans. Also, since I picked up a fatty a couple years ago, I continue to get out through the winter at least a couple days a week instead of hunkering down in the Stankment™ on the trainer or at the gym, so it never really feels like an “off-season,” just a “freeze your tits off season.”
This year I also find myself entertaining thoughts of carrying my fitness through the winter and improving on in the spring so as to maybe, think about considering, talking about maybe mauling over the idea of possibly saying blood thinner excuse be damned and doing a few races in 2016 and/or planning a couple of low-key mountain bike adventures. We’ll see what happens with all that, it’s easy to think those things when you’re motoring down a dirt road on a seventy degree day with the sun out and the wind at your back. Not so easy when you need to force yourself out to ride in the wind and twenty degree temps or to climb on the trainer to bust out some puke bucket intervals. On those days it’s real easy to pick up a sixer of Storm King Stout and lay around watching DVRed football matches while listening to sad bastard music.
All that 2016 wishful thinking aside, the ride was swell and got me over 100 miles so far this week with more riding planned for Thursday and the weekend. Not a bad way to start off November.
Because of the warm temps I also took the opportunity to sit my ass on the front porch in the setting sun with Jake (the dog) late yesterday afternoon. Chilling on the front porch has long been one of my favorite ways to unwind. I figured there may not be too many more opportunities in 2015 do it, so I’d better sit and chill. Except for Jake wanting off the porch, on the porch, back in the house, back outside, back in the house and back outside the entire time, it was nice. That dog is lucky I love him, because he can be fucking mental!
Later.