Wednesday brought another welcomed chance to ride, and attempt to burn off some of the calories I put on over the past week (and years) of rideless slack. It was also a chance to ride dirt and gravel roads south of town. Some of those roads proved to be no day at the beach, even though they were very much like riding on one.
After Sunday’s short, miserable windy ride, I had little desire to do anything but what was required of me as a father, husband, and human being on Monday. I did what I had to do, and got it over with… sort of like me in grades 1 through 12.
I’m on a streak of late. Sadly it’s not a good one. This streak has included one of two things: not riding, or shit rides. The past three days, the streak continued.
I hadn’t been on the bike since last Tuesday; a full eight days that seemed to include everything but riding my bike. Many of those days had weather that was more like early March than late April and May, so I don’t feel like I missed out on too much, except the opportunity to burn some calories as I attempt to shed my muffin top.
Monday’s 45 mile ride was one of the best rides I’ve had in 2017. Everything just fell into place; warm, but not too warm, low wind, good legs, and a great attitude. Tuesday’s ride… not so much.
After an OK start to last week, the riding sort of petered out; first due to weather, and then to a hectic soccer schedule that included two games on Saturday, lots of driving, and 14+ hours away from home. All that stuff was good of course and I eventually got out to ride Sunday, and both soccer and riding allowed me to bag a few firsts.
I didn’t plan to ride on Wednesday, but Thursday’s weather looked to be (and is) about as inviting as a rain-soaked, paper bag full of dog excrement, and I wanted some miles in, so I did a short ride. To my surprise, the world unfortunately plodded on, the house didn’t collapse, and no kittens died due to my 1.5 hours on the bike doing a Better Than The Trainer Ride™.
However rural Michigan did continue to provide entertainment for me, as well as make me sigh, shake my head and wonder about the state of our society, all while burning a few calories and getting some miles in. Beats watching The View in my underwear while eating raw cookie dough.
I got out yesterday for another go at the new-ish 37.5 loop that I concocted, this time in reverse. It was a bit colder at ride time that I would have liked, and even with a base layer the man nips were on full blast. Cool, but it sure beats riding in full on winter gear.
Only 16 of the 37.5 miles are on dirt roads, but dirt roads are dirt roads, and I’ll take what I can get during a ride.
As I’ve mentioned here many times before, Mondays are usually my days to catch up on all the stuff that I should have done over the weekend, but didn’t. This Monday was also a day that I should have fired up Illustrator and worked on a project that I keep putting off, and off, and off, and off, because it’s driving me mad, and I have the attention span on a 5-year-old on meth. So, it remains unfinished.
It was Monday, the sun was out, no lives were hanging in the balance from what needed done, and the world creeps ever closer to nuclear war due to the orange troll in charge of our country. So I said “f*ck it,” and rode my bike.
After a lackluster ride on Wednesday, I took Thursday off the bike, limiting myself to getting stuff done, running on the Dreadmill® and lifting heavy thing for no reason. I returned to the saddle on Friday, and got in some much-needed time riding dirt roads; dirt roads that seem to finally be shaping up.
