With two straight days filled with work, stress, home issues, and 45th birthday angst behind me, I woke up on Friday anxious to get out for some miles and picture snapping. It took a while to get my mojo going, but eventually it all worked out.
It had been a few days since I had a good ride, and even longer since I had a good one south of town; mostly due to my proximity of the northern dirt roads. Getting to and from the dirt roads south of town requires more pavement than I enjoy. Since I’d rather ride the bulk of my miles on roads less paved, I utilized one of the local county parks as a launching pad for the ride. The result was that I cut off 10 miles of pavement, and added in 10 miles of dirt for a sweet 32-ish mile ride on dirt roads with plenty of pic-cha takin’.
The Drive to Ride is not at the top of my list of things to do, but these days it’s all about a miles to smiles, photo taking ratio that leaves riding busy (relatively speaking, I mean it is Mt. Pleasant, Michigan) pavement through one side of town and out the other past endless blocks of student housing and the minds ripe for molding who have one eye their burning loins, and the other on their texting fingers, I went with the Drive ‘n Ride option. Lame? Yep! Safer? Yepper!
My lower back and hip hurt like hell on Thursday (happy birthday you old fat ass!), so I wasn’t all that hopeful for a successful ride on Friday. However, somehow it managed to work out and it was the best ride I had all lack-craping-luster week.
Friday was cloudy and a cool(er) 80˚, which was an oddity of late here in central Michigan. I think it’s rained for about 30 minutes combined for the last two months or more. Outside of that, it’s been blue sky, hot sun, and seeing my new lawn get burned like a .50¢ joint.
Could the ride have been better, longer, stronger? Sure. But it was just fine. My legs came around, I continue to learn my way around the Nikon D7100, and when I got home I was happy to be soaked with sweat, a shit ton of calories burned, and have a card full of pics I dug, So what could/would Saturday bring?
Oh Saturday… you had potential. You failed. I hate you.
Earlier in the week my friend Napper called and asked if I wanted to be part of a shits and giggles four person team at the Eight Hours of Ithaca. I agreed that it sounded like fun, but needed to check with the out of town Wifey and B-Man to see when they would be back from their trip back to PA. Turns out they weren’t coming back until Sunday or possibly Monday, so someone would have to be round to let Jake (the dog) out for a wee or shit. Dude can due 8 or 9 hours no problem, but I would be out of the house for 10 to 12 or more with travel time. I could do SOME of the race, but have to come back early to get Jake out so as not to soil our new home. I never heard back, so that apparently didn’t work out, so I opted for an easy paced dirt road ride north of town with an eye on heading down to shoot some pics at the race later. What could go wrong?
At first it was typical me: fat belly bouncing in my kit, back hurting, hip not comfortable, mind wanting to find the nearest bridge more than three feet off the ground to ride straight off of. Well, since I didn’t/wouldn’t/couldn’t ride all freaking day to find such a bridge, I dealt with it, and rode on.
Eventually things were going fine and I was in the zone for getting the ride in, so I could get home to run some Saturday errands. Then, with five miles to go in the sub-30 mile ride– CLLLLLUNK-THE-MOTHER-OF CLUNKING GOD-CLUNK-OF-HELL! I snapped a spoke at the hub and my rear wheel went WAY out of true.”Oh, for fuck’s, fucking sake!!!!!!”
I pulled over, attempted to wrap the spoke to prevent further damage, and realized I was fucked. Time to try to get a ride home.
Easier said than done… Wifey is out of town. Mike was canoeing, and apparently Ryan was riding motorcycles up north. I was screwed.
So, I did a bit of this, a bit of that, and some of the other thing, (none of which really worked) thought about walking, said “fuck it,” and headed off to ride last few miles home with a tire rubbing and squealing against my frame.
I was happy that I didn’t have to walk five miles along a paved road in belly revealing lycra, and clunky bike shoes, but was less than thrilled with the ride. After I got over one of those “why do I even bother?” moments, I ate lunch, showered and did my best to forget about the day.
I never did make it down to shoot any pics at the race, I was enjoying not thinking about riding my bike too much. There was much hanging out listening to music, processing photos, and cooking chicken on the grill.
Even though I know it’s going to be a painful shit show, I’m planning on doing some trail time on Sunday.
Later.