Post Category → Cycling

The Weekend (Sort Of )

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I was able to get a couple of nice rides in this weekend (both on dirt (roads) and pavement). And today I FINALLY got to ride without a winter jacket AND in knee warmers for the first time in 2014!! Most of the dirt roads were bone dry from the warm(ish) temps and relentless winds we’ve had the past few days, but some are still covered with ice, snow and LOTS of mud. Still, it was all good.

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I have some pics to go through and some words to add about the rides, but other than my time on the bike, the last week and weekend have been less than stellar. Wifey took my xB back to Pittsburgh (because we thought it was the better of our two paid off high mileage cars) and the engine took a $3,000 bed shit. Ssoooooo we are in the midst of replacing the vehicle (which is still in Pittsburgh), dealing with a giant ass rental car (seriously, the Dodge Caravan is like a city fucking block long) and figuring out what to do.

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Vintage Paris-Roubaix & Pornography

1910parisroubaixI may not have done anything on Monday (except make rice and beans and play basketball with B-Man), and I may have only ridden the trainer for an hour today, but I DID find this bad ass photo from the 1910 Paris-Roubaix to share, so I am pretty sure that the Cycling Gods forgive me for my lackluster two-wheeled training regime. Fuck it.

I would have rather sucked the blood from the neck of my neighbor’s ever barking dogs with my bare face after hitting them with two large cinder blocks, than ride the trainer, but I still did.

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The Poop Ride

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Yesterday was a nice 2:25+ in the saddle out on the muddy dirt roads. It was a great ride but it’s funny how those damp, muddy rides out in the chilly spring air can take it out of you. Even after a semi-fitful/restful night of sleep (some nights that’s all I can hope for) I just didn’t have the mojo to ride today. But I did, ’cause it’s been a LONG ass winter and to turn down the chance to ride and further attempt to burn off my beer keg sized love handles might qualify as a sacrilege (depending on which faith you practice, if any). So after watching the Everton v Fulham match and a bit of the Liverpool match (before I let the DVR do its thing), I headed out to get SOMETHING in on the bike.

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It’s Grim Up North

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Today was the first Saturday in a long, long, LONG time that I could get back to my routine of getting up, drinking coffee, eating breakfast, watching a bit of football and heading out on a ride. My initial plan was to go a bit north of town, then head south to seek out some bigger rollers, but somewhere along the way I changed my mind and stayed north of town the entire ride.

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An Unexpected Detour

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I debated back and forth whether to go for a ride or not today. The weather LOOKED beautiful; sun, blue sky and a light breeze. Very spring-like. The only thing missing was the spring-like temperature. I think when I headed out the door it was less than 20˚.  To say I was less than thrilled to ride in such temps (yet again) would be an understatement. But the prospect of the trainer was just NOT that appealing and since I gotz handfuls of fat that need to be burned off ASAP, that meant layering up–yet again–for a ride in cold ass temps.

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Newsboy Racing

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Long before newspapers (remember them) started being delivered by grizzled, cigarette smoking bald men hurling bagged papers out the windows of their muffler-less, rusted out Chevy Novas to help finance their overdue child support*, and well before Kevin Bacon created bike messenger chìc and ushered in a quinquennial wave of movies, documentaries and TV shows about the trade, there were newsboys.

Kids hawking newspapers for coin, many delivering stacks of papers via bicycles, all over cities and towns around the world. Like their great, great grandsons, some–like the lad above– apparently chose to smoke as well. Ah, what’s a lung or two, as long as you’re riding bikes.

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Back To Racing (Sort of)

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As I drank a couple of beers late last Saturday afternoon I somehow convinced myself to go ahead and enter the Barry-Roubaix’s 36 mile race, a distance– at the time of entering–roughly 15 miles longer than any ride I had done in 2014 due to the relentless and brutal winter we’ve had. It would also be only my second ride not to be completed on fat bike this calendar year. “This could be bad for me, but other than a few out-of-staters, everyone else will be in the same frigid, snow, ice and shit filled boat as me,” I thought as entered my credit card information and took the final draw from my pint of Founder’s Imperial Stout. So let it be done… it’s God’s will… it is what it is. Pffft! Whatever, it’s just bike ridin’.

And with that, I now give you yet another race ride report, in a long history of Soiled Chamois race reports, that didn’t need to be written…

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Dust & Mud

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The 2014 Strade Bianche race was a super fun race to watch! I highly recommend watching it [HERE] on YouTube or downloading it from your favorite torrent site. Peter Sagan (Cannondale) is such a powerful and fun racer to watch, but was outdone by Michal “The Kielbasa King” Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) who was in freaking beast mode. Watching the pros racing on the white, dusty gravel of Italy was just the motivation I needed (along with a couple high-octane beers) to finally enter the 2014 Barry-Roubaix.

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Little In Return & Bloody Knees

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This week has given me very little and in return I have given back even less. So far, aside from two trips to the gym (with varying results) and spending ten minutes on the stationary trainer before saying “fuck it, this is like the dumbest thing ever,” I have pretty much done nothing. And when I say “nothing,” I mean NOTHING. Well, unless standing at the back door and blindly staring out the window wondering what people with real lives are doing is something, but I am pretty sure that qualifies as nothing. I guess I could consult The Idiot’s Guide to Depressive Slack & Ennui for an official ruling, but I’m way too busy doing nothing .

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