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!
The past two weeks have been jammed with a lingering illness, holiday madness, travel and the aforementioned dad duties, so as you might imagine, I was NOT to be stopped from riding today. Then I woke up this morning and saw roughly four inches of fresh, still coming down hard, haven’t seen any since November, snow on the ground. Frozen shit balls!!!
OK, that’s no big deal, I got me one of them there fat bikes, I can ride in the snow, even if I am not crazy about riding in it while it’s still steadily coming down (I just don’t find it all that safe). But then I checked the five-day forecast and saw that tomorrow we’re expecting winds of up to 25 miles per hour and Monday the high for the day is going to be eight degrees. Yes, FUCKINGEIGHT! (spelled as one word for dramatic effect).
With that bit of weather news in my noggin, I stuffed my even fatter than usual carcass into multiple layers of winter type clothing and headed out for a ride on the Farley, for while I’m not crazy about riding while heavy snow is still coming down, I am less thrilled with riding in freezing cold 25 mph winds and high temperatures of eight. That’s right, at this point I would rather get crushed from behind by a snow plow than ride in wintertime 25 mph winds. Some folks may even encourage such a crushing event to happen.
The ride wouldn’t be all that long, just about 1:50 in the saddle, but WOW did I work my tits off! Most of the dirt roads hadn’t seen too much traffic yet and that made for slowwwww going. On top of that the temperatures were slowing warming. From 32 at the ride’s start to roughly 36 by the time I finished. That meant the snow was losing it’s earlier powder and becoming heavy, wet and slow.
Some roads, despite being pancake flat, had the fatty (speaking of both me and the bike) struggling to hit ten miles per hour. But you know what? It was all worth it! I hadn’t been outside to ride since December 20th! In that time, all my workouts were either on the treadmill (four or five times) or on the newly erected stationary trainer (twice). The rest of that time was spent sleeping, shivering, coughing, traveling, eating, drinking, eating, traveling, drinking, eating and drinking.
With such a long time off the bike, getting out today felt surprisingly awesome. My legs felt good, the bike handled well (not due to me) and my lungs were good. I was a tad overdressed and pumping out a TON of sweat that smelled like a cocktail of body odor, ham, beer, gin, rum, pine needles, fecal matter and reindeer urine. Mmmm….. reindeer urine…
The weather forecast is looking less than appealing for a few days and my want to be out in that less that appealing weather is sort of low, so I may find myself once again working out indoors as I FINALLY embrace the new year, moderate, semi-controlled sobriety and continued healthy(ish) eating.
For a cyclist who is now one level above a weekend warrior, today hurt, but in a good way. I consider it penance for two weeks of sloth and time off the bike. I felt good (despite my newfound girth), the Farley performed well in the yet to be packed down, fresh snow and it was great to be out on the dirt roads. I even got friendly waves from a passing snow machine today and a few pickup driving farmers. I love riding here, despite its elevation handicap!
Later.