Post Category → Cycling

Off The Bike Intervals

Intervals. Man, NO one likes ’em. Especially fat, 43-year-old cyclists who aren’t really training for anything. The only reason I’ve rediscovered them at all is due to their ability to burn fat. Getting faster for the one to three races I now do each year is the least of my concerns…what’s the difference between 12th and 20th place in some vet class?

bellybeerfatdudeIntervals now (and not the 12 oz. sort) are all about trying to stay in the same sized clothing, preventing my belly from bouncing on my thighs when I ride, and burning off all those beers and cocktails I enjoyed over the past few weeks years.

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Holiday Penance

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Yesterday we had blue skies, bright sunshine and 35 degree temps here in Michiganderburgh, perfect for getting out to roll some dirt roads. Sadly I was on my last day of Christmas vacation dad duty and found myself spinning for an hour in the basement. Later I would watch Facebookers post photos from their rides, hating them all with the venom of a thousand cobras. Freaking status posting bike jerks!

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A Few of My Favorite Things

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It’s year’s end time, so rather than blather on about resolutions I won’t keep and plans that won’t happen, I thought I would put together a small list of my favorite Soiled Chamois blog posts from the past year. I’m not saying the posts were “technically” good or that they were the most read, they are just some of the ones that I enjoyed writing. I’m also not saying that you should like what I like, be your own person Goddamn it!

BTW, I regretted the title of this post as soon as I typed it, for it shares its name with the song A Few of My Favorite Things, which if it weren’t for the existence of the Paul McCartney & Wings holiday song Wonderful Christmastime it would possibly be my most hated song in the world. OR the song that I will most likely lose my mental shit to one day.

So here we are in no particular order, rhyme, reason or rank…

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A Brief Respite

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After 3.5 days of being ill, it was so awesome to wake up on Friday morning and not feel like I’d been drug through the street by a group of angry Stevie Wonder fans. It was even nicer to get me and my Goblin-ish chins and belly on the treadmill for a three-mile lumber, and nicer still to get out for a quick but satisfying 1:45 ramble on Michiganderburgh dirt roads via the Farley on Saturday. But…

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It Doesn’t Make Sense

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Sometimes to stop something from driving you insane, you have to share it with someone. Since the therapist that I never really got around to making an appointment with–even though Wifey, my family, PCP and local law enforcement think I did–is off doing whatever nonexistent therapists do (I assume listening to NPR friendly Spanish guitar music whilst cutting the address boxes off covers of waiting room bound volumes of Architectural Digest), I will just share my thoughts with the Interwebosphere: Stevie Wonder is a prick!! Here’s why…

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Fogged Up, In, Whatever

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The past two days seem more like one long, soggy day. Both days featured pretty OK temperatures (for December in Michigan), gray skies and a fog so heavy that it coated all of Michiganderburgh like cold, stank, three-day old, dirty dishwater. In fact, after two days of riding through the fog on muddy, dank, dirt roads, I feel pretty much the way the photo above looks. Everything is cold and wet and we’ve not had actual rain or snow since Monday! What the stink?

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Studless

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Monday night we got an inch or so of super wet, super sloppy snow. Here in town it is pretty much all gone. In fact, I hadn’t even thought about it since Tuesday morning when I was outside cleaning it off the driveway in my PJs; until I hit the dirt roads today.

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Back To Rambling

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After my second flab flailing run of the week atop the treadmill yesterday (in which I somehow hurt my foot), I was anxious to get back on the bike today. I wasn’t so anxious to get out in the 20˚ temps, but the sun was out, things are bone dry and even if the winter turns pear-shaped tomorrow and shits down an ass ton of snow, this winter is already better than last winter, so I will embrace it and ride (or at least do my interpretation of riding, which these days seems to be rolling along snapping photos whilst I train for nothing in particular except not to move up another pants size).

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