Outdoor riding continues to elude me for a variety of reasons; first because of the abundances of rutted ice on many roads, then because it got cold as shit outside and for some reason this winter I am lacking the motivation freeze my tits off. Please note that “lack of motivation” is just code for my laziness, but that’s your call.
On the bright side, I was looking back at January and was pretty happy with it. January is notoriously a Blue Monday, rope to the attic, warm bath and razor blades sort of month, yet I racked up 19+ hours worth of “doing stuff.” Sadly there were only three outdoor rides in that, and I only lost about two pounds (which I surely gained back in February).
Warmer 45˚ temps were back on Monday and normally that would mean I could at least get in a Better Than The Trainer Ride™, but the flu unleashed itself on B-Man, and most off his 7th grade class, and the day was spent at the local urgent care and getting scripts, as well as shopping for all his favorite fluids to suck down. The next couple days will spent making sure he’s OK, and playing the waiting game with Wifey to see which of us gets it next.
Somewhere in between that stuff I got some treadmill and trainer work in, and found time to buy a new to me car, that is actually a new to me car for Wifey, and I take over the reins of our three-year old Ford Escape. I’m stoked, ’cause I love that car! I drove a 2009 Scion xB for over five years; then the engine blew up while Wifey had it back in PA a few year ago. She stopped at the dealer we bought it from to confirm its demise, and they offered us a deal on a 2012 xB to replace it. I had long tired of driving the toaster-like xB, and no longer really needed the cargo space for my racing, but the deal was too good to pass up. So I continued to roll around in a box on wheels. Then last week I stopped at our Ford dealer and found a loaded 2015 Escape with low miles and a good enough price. Wifey loved it, we agreed to the car swap, she’s stoked with the new (to us) ride, I’m stoked with taking over the older one, and we’re a two Escape family. I’m usually a pretty sentimental guy, but I handed the xB’s keys over and never looked back.
While I might not be that sentimental about cars, I did get a bit sentimental as I looked back at an article I wrote for issue 13 of XXC Magazine about six years ago. I had done a two-part article about racing the Ore to Shore race, then traveling to Copper Harbor to ride and chill. I’ve written a ton of “race reports” over the years, but Part I of this article was one of my favorites. I long deleted the original XXC files from my computer to free up space for things like photos, music, and porn, so I couldn’t copy and paste it here. But I have included a three page PDF of the article that you can download and read HERE if you want. The sentimental in reading part came from the fact that I mention my son Brennan a few times in the piece; he was 7 at the time of writing, and later this week will turn 13. Yikes!
Hopefully I have something worth writing about in the coming days but the forecast looks dismal.
Later.