After Wednesday’s lackluster ride which featured me working more on a jacked up shoe cleat and taking photos than it did actually riding my bike, I was hopeful that Thursday would be more fruitful in the mileage department. Sadly, it was not.
I knew that we got some rain overnight but I had no idea of how much. I figured it couldn’t have been too bad or I would have heard it beating against the house. So I got my gear together and rolled the PrOcal northward from the Cul-De-Sac-Shack for a foggy morning ride on gravel roads.
As I pedaled the mile of pavement toward the dirt roads I was passed by Ring on his way to work at Motorless. A friendly honk was sounded and waves were exchanged. It’s always nice to see a friendly face out on the paved roads rather than furrowed brows and engines gunned in anger by motorists annoyed that I am slowing them down in some way by making them move 3 feet to the left to avoid killing me.
As the pavement ended it was clear that we got WAY more rain overnight than I thought. The dirt and gravel roads had a thick layer of slippery mud on them, and some roads were swampy messes of deep, cakey goo. “Shit!” was muttered and spoken aloud more than a few times as I imagined handfuls of cash being handed over to my friends at Terry’s Cycle in the coming weeks.
After a few miles of riding through the cold sticky mud, I reached a short paved sector. I reached down for my water bottle and came up empty. It seems that when my pre-ride routine was broken by the mounting of a rear fender I spaced on filling a bottle. My mind can only handle so much, and apparently getting dressed, mounting a fender AND grabbing a bottle before a ride is just too much for it.
Deep mud, a slow pace because of said mud, and now the lack of a bottle ensured that the ride would be limited. I powered through the mud, took some photos here and there and finished with just 22.5 miles. In other words, the ride was not what I had hoped for.
The lack of a quality ride for the second day in row stung more with the knowledge that the next three days will be void of any miles at all due to a busy Friday and back to back days of soccer travel to just outside of Detroit and Flint areas.
With that, it looks like I will be forced to the No So Stankment™ to run on the treadmill and lift heavy things for no reason other than to attempt to lift my pecs northward from my rib cage to my chestial area.
Later.