Tag Archives | barns

Almost Warm

By soiledchamois on April 12, 2016 in Cycling

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Spring in Michigan means that even when there’s no snow, sleet, or freezing rain, ride time often greets you with 32˚ temps and a crisp 10+ MPH wind coming out of the north/west. With a heavy sigh into the vat of coffee raised to my rotund face, I reluctantly made my way up to the Chamber of Farts™ to strap myself into Part 1 of my winter riding gear (spring ensemble): wool socks, fat condensing base layer, lined bibs, and Craft WindStopper base layer*. Then down to the big box of bike shit for Part 2: riding jacket, cool weather gloves, vintage Bikeman.com skull-cap and my regular Pearl Izumi kicks. With that, me and the Boone were out the door…

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Seven & Eleven

By soiledchamois on March 11, 2016 in Cycling

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Despite having legs that felt as heavy has a two sacks of haggis, I got out for a ride on Thursday. Right now, I’m not so concerned with the length of the rides, just trying to get consistent time on the bike. So I headed out for yet another Better Than The Trainer Ride™, but this time ventured off of pavement for a bit and reintroduced some dirt, er I should say mud, to the ride.

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The Last of The Fat & Progress

By soiledchamois on March 7, 2016 in Cat 5 Cooking, Cycling

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Thursday’s ride was followed by two days in the Stankment™ on the treadmill. One of those days consisted of some brief–don’t pull a hammy you fat bastard– sprints, followed by incline intervals at a walking pace that surprisingly got my average heart rate higher than the trainer, and about on par with–what admittedly are–my crap fat bike rides on snirt roads. Thankfully those two days underground were followed by a ride outside Sunday, a ride in which I pray to the Cycling Gods was my LAST ride on snow until late 2016.

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Stupid vs Stupider

By soiledchamois on March 4, 2016 in Cycling

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A fecal laced recipe of heavy snow, strong winds, little time, and the slap in the face realization that I need to lose a toddler sized amount of weight forced me into the Stankment™ to ride the trainer for three days in a row this week. I think it’s been two years or more since I rode the trainer that many days in a row! Ever since I picked up the Fatterson there’s been no need for such stupidity. Why do something stupid like pedal a bike to nowhere in your basement, when you can do something equally as stupid–yet oddly more fun–like ride a clown bike on snow covered dirt roads in 25˚ weather.

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A Temporary Return

By soiledchamois on February 18, 2016 in Cycling

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It seemed like forever since I last rode outside. I am fully aware that in reality it was 11 days, but it might as well have been 1,100. As mentioned in a previous post, that time was ~~well~~ spent doing my best to become a Tub-O-Goo. A fatter, rounder, dumber me. Just what the world needs.

Today however I was finally able to say “Goo be damned!” and get out for a ride. Not a long ride, but a ~~quick~~ short 20 mile snirt road ride on the Fatterson in 25˚ temps is better than nothing, and since it was on the Fatterson it felt 50% harder, and was 40.23% slower than when on a “real” bike (stats based on feel rather than some whacked out witchcraft like math). No offence to fat ridin’ , winter lovin’ folk, but I can’t wait to ditch the heavy fatty and get back to riding real bikes while wearing less than four layers of clothing on.

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The Best Worst Ride (This Month)

By soiledchamois on January 31, 2016 in Cycling

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Since last Saturday’s “race,” riding has been somewhat limited by road and trail conditions, time, and desire. Other than that 4.5 mile snowshoe up north, my laziness kicked into high gear and my half-hearted attempts at strength training turned into quarter hearted attempts, and any time on the trainer was short-lived with a focus on “fuck it.”

It looked as if I could get in a dirt road ride in Saturday morning. With an eye on rising temps, I hoped that I could roll the studded Fatterson on frozen dirt and ice and avoid the slushy, muddy quagmire that the Michigan dirt roads would become as they thawed throughout the day. As you can see, I didn’t make it. I could have made it if I could have pushed my ass out the door earlier in the morning, but I got wrapped up in laziness, coffee, and FA Cup footy.

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The Fog Before The Storm

By soiledchamois on January 10, 2016 in Cycling

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January is notoriously the hardest month for me to get through, especially here in Michigan; it’s long, cold, snowy, icy, and as of late it’s been foggy. Snow and ice on the ground, followed by rain and warmer temperatures meant that a heavy fog rolled into the Mt. Pleazy area on Friday night and it stuck around well into Saturday ~~morning~~ afternoon. Not ideal conditions for getting out for a road ride, but with the rains predicted to changeover to snow Saturday night, I wanted to get a few (emphasis on few) miles in.

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Snirtishness

By soiledchamois on January 8, 2016 in Cycling

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Thursday morning after I got B off to school I found myself waffling on when and where to squeeze a ride in, or if I wanted to at all. I should really do that second strength training session of the week, and conditions aren’t that ideal right now with many of the snirt roads being covered with every imaginable form of winter: ice, snow, slush, mud, water, dead squirrels, etc., etc. But with rain in the forecast, which will undoubtedly make the dirt and snow (snirt) into miles and miles of gritty chilled diarrhea, I figured I’d better roll while the rolling’s good.

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Studded

By soiledchamois on January 6, 2016 in Cycling

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Yesterday’s short, sweet. intense ride on the trainer (yuck!) was semi-enjoyable, but as I mentioned in the last post, there really is nothing like riding outside. So that’s what I did. But not before some Fredwardian maintenance.

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Beats The Trainer

By soiledchamois on December 15, 2015 in Cycling

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After Friday’s sweet ride in the woods on the Procaliber, I took Saturday off the bike to go take some pics at a local cross race here in town [you can see the gallery at junkmilesmedia.com]. Unfortunately it pissed down a hard rain all day Sunday, so a ride was out. Then on Monday the piss down continued, but this time it was accompanied by gusting, wrath of God, Old Testament style gusting winds. With that, I needed to be content with lifting heavy things for no reason and running going nowhere in the Stankment™ until today. Huzzah!

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