I had another early morning PT session on Wednesday. You would think a ride after a session with a therapist stretching, and ripping at my muscles and forcing me to work my core in a million different directions would have me super loose and ready to ride. Sadly, past experience has proved otherwise. Until Wednesday.
Before I unnecessarily talk about a slow 32 mile gravel road ride, I have to backtrack to talk about the Boone’s rear wheel which shit the bed last Saturday after I broke a spoke five miles from home. I had stopped down the shop to drop the wheel off for repair, and upon closer examination it was revealed that the reason for the failure wasn’t due to my girth, my power, or any wrenching mistake when building. It all went back to a few weeks ago when my chain jumped ship and lodged between my cassette and spokes. I got the chain out, and made the adjustments to the derailleur, but failed to see that the chain severely gouged the spokes. Bad enough that a another week of riding under my weight caused the worst of them to fail. In any event the wheel is as good as new now, Napper is happy that it wasn’t a build error, and I’m glad that it wasn’t from my newfound girth. Everybody fucking wins!!
So with the newly repaired wheel under my flabby ass, and against my better judgment, I headed out for a hot and humid, mid-morning ride on the Boone.
After a couple of rides on the PrOcal, it was nice to be riding dirt roads on a bike better suited for such endeavors. I mixed things up a bit, avoided as much pavement as I could and the result was ride that still got me 30+ miles, but without a stretch of pavement longer than two or three miles.
Despite an early wake up, the PT, and the hot and humid conditions, I managed to have a really good ride. The photos were hit or miss, but I did get a couple that I dug. Especially in black and white, which is never really my first choice for processing.
After the ride, some errands, and some pixel pushing for some wheel repairing friends, I got B off to a planned sleepover with some friends, came home cracked a few beers, took some photos of the birds in the back yard, put some chicken on the grill and caught said grill on fire. Had to turn the garden hose on it!
Thankfully no one was hurt and the deck and house are fine. Let’s just say I spent some quality time cleaning out the greasy gunk from the bottom of the grill today. Good times…
Took Thursday off the bike to get some stuff done (like not aggravate my back), and I’m hoping to get out for a quick morning ride tomorrow before things get busier later in the day.
Later.