Posts Tagged → being a michigander-burgher-ite

Best Made Plans

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After working eleven hours at the shop on Wednesday and knowing that I had the next two days off, I had a plan for my Thursday: sleep in (8:45 AM) and get thirty to forty miles of fast dirt road riding in on the Boone before cutting grass, trimming some hedges, going for groceries, doing laundry and getting B off to his last night of soccer camp, after which he would leave to spend the night with some friends and teammates while I enjoyed some white trash Mexican food and a cocktail or three while watching pre-season footy.

Here is how that worked out…

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Soggy & Hot

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Last Thursday I headed back to western PA for a couple-ish days. I wasn’t all that keen to make a trip back right now, but with my dad recovering from a recent heart attack, I thought it was only proper to head home, check up on him, and pay a visit. It would also give me and my family a chance to catch up with some great friends that we haven’t seen in a while. I wish I could have seen a few others during my stay, but that will have to wait for later in the summer or fall.

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Chasing And Catching

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Going to do a bit of catch up here on the blog this digital fish wrap I call a blog. Bare with me, as I am condensing three days worth of crap into one big blog post that no one will should read. I will type some shit, I will post some pics, I will care little about either (and neither will you).

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Why Would You Do That?

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After four days in a row of riding, which included: a mountain bike ride in the woods, a fast dirt road ride on my Boone and two fat bike rambles on the Farley, I was back at work at the shop today. As always, it was nice to get back to contributing to society for 8+ hours. Of course I am not sure how much society appreciated me there to contribute to it.

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Notes on Gravel (Dirt Roads)

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The following is the unsolicited opinion piece you never knew you needed.

I’ve read various things, both positive and negative, in the past few weeks about gravel riding, gravel racing and gravel bikes [Gravel™]. Because I am a negative person, I tend to dwell on the negative comments rather than the positive. Guitar Ted writes that some folks feel that gravel racing has gotten “too big.” Yeah, a fringe race genre within a fringe sport, that 98% of America hates or doesn’t even know IS a sport has gotten too big. That’s like saying Fugazi got “too big.” For fuck’s sake people!

To my knowledge no one has ever put a gun to anyone’s head to do a gravel road race or any bike race. Of course I can’t rule out that some crazy ass Italian put a gun to someone’s head back in the early days of the Giro, or that more than a couple Keirin racers haven’t had a guns pointed at them by nut jobs with gambling arrears so as to produce desired results. But I digress…

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Multi-Surface Monday

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With Wifey out of town until late Wednesday night, I won’t be working any hours at the shop until late in the week. For while B is old enough to stay extended hours on his own, over nine hours on his own, with the closest parent 25 minutes away, is a bit extreme. No big deal, this gives me a chance to catch up on stuff around the house, hang out with B, and get a few 30-35 mile multi-surface loops in my legs.

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The Best Days

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Last night I was once again banished to the Chamber of Farts: the guest bedroom where Wifey forces me to sleep when my digestive system decides that it wants to spew forth noxious gas time and time again for eight to twelve hours (which is pretty much every night). So I was pleasantly surprised that Wifey chose to enter my stank chamber early this morning for some snuggle time. Sadly it was NOT an early morning booty call, but it was pretty delicious that she braved the heavily scented C.o.F. to be with me before flying out to D.C. later in the morning.

Initial snuggles were followed by a failed attempts (by me) to turn the snuggle fest into something more, which was followed by chatting about the coming day and week. “What do you have planned today?” she asked. “Nothing much, I’d like to get a mountain bike ride in, but with you gone I might end up sticking closer to home.” We chatted a bit more and discussed how I could probably get in one big lap at MMCC and B would be OK. Then I farted, Wifey got pissed off, left the room, I confiscated the extra pillows, waved the eye watering stink away with the sheet and went back to sleep for another hour.

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