Posts Tagged → being a michigander-burgher-ite

Forty-One in Forty-One

4141pic

I stayed up late Thursday night to greet Wifey when she arrived home from her week of dropping knowledge on work peeps in D.C.. After a brief meet and greet where we tried to catch each other up on the week’s events, it was off to bed so as to be up early for B’s parent/teacher conferences in the morning. Thankfully his school is literally right across the street and his conferences are usually a breeze. We were happy to get a good report from his teacher and even happier with word of continued straight A’s (pardon my proud dad moment, but straight A’s is something I NEVER saw in school. Hell, I’m not sure I ever got an A in anything besides my art classes).

Once home, B and Wifey headed out for the 6.5 hour drive back to western PA for a quick visit with family and I set about getting my bike ready for the day’s road ride.

Continue reading →

The First Skinny Ride of 2015

16580257547_6b850cba0b_c

I’m no expert on enemas or on heroin usage (thankfully), but I would almost have to think that the first ride on skinny(er) tires after a long winter of riding slow, fat, knobby, studded tires would compare to that of a Mark Renton approved heroin enema. Maybe I should just say that getting out today on skinny 35c tires (hey, that’s like a 23c to me!) felt pretty amazing compared to the past four months of riding tires so fat they make me look skinny? Either way, it felt good to get out.

Continue reading →

Snirt Roads & Rainbows

16567199479_022149a5a2_c

It was a week and counting Thursday since I had last been out on the snow-covered dirt roads of Michiganderburgh. In that time I rocked a pretty unenjoyable head and chest cold which made spending time out in single digit temperatures a less than desirable option to blowing snot rockets on myself as I rode the trainer in the Stankment™.

Continue reading →

Reveling in the Wallowing

flawed

A week ago tonight I got hit with my first major cold/cough/sinus issue of the year. I guess I was due. In that time I’ve not done a hell of a lot in the way of riding my bike outside. So far I believe the week’s total on “doing stuff” amounts to just three hours on the trainer. Unlike in years past, I have no early spring races coming up that have me anxious about my fitness, nor am I overly concerned about the lack of recent riding, especially since the weather has been ass monkey cold (I just made that phrase up, feel free to use it at your leisure). It’s been sunny nearly every day for a week, but cold enough that I am quite content to spin my miles away in the Stankment™  as snot oozes out my face like a lanced boil.

Continue reading →

A Small Mental Victory Over Winter

16470378088_13fe71f766_c

Since Tuesday’s 30+ mile per hour wind gusts and -25˚ wind chills moved on, we here in central Michigan have been treated to a few days of brilliant sunshine and blue skies. Of course the lack of cloud cover also means that temperatures are struggling to get out of the single digits until well after lunch. Unfortunately, my time slot to ride is around 10 a.m., when the thermometer is grunting, groaning and moaning to get above zero.

Because of those high winds earlier in the week and the frigid temps that followed, I spent the first three days of this week hunkered down in the Stankment™ putting in miles running on the treadmill and riding the trainer. You would think that after forty-three years of living in the cold winter climates of Pennsylvania and Michigan I would be used to the cold and snow and would have learned to love it. Nope.

Like many of my cycling friends in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota I try my best to be active through it, but unlike many of them, I always fail to embrace or love the winter. For me the result is always the same; I tolerate winter and merely try to survive it with my mind and liver still functioning properly and my pant size unchanged come spring.

But enough of that winter hating hyperbole, lets’ get to the winter riding hyperbole…

Continue reading →

Rubber, Beans, Balls & Whore’s Chicken

16026449974_f9647106df_o

I took delivery of some new rubber today in the form of the WTB Nano TCS 2.1. I picked up the 700 x 40 version of the tires for the Jake The Snake late last fall and really liked the way they rolled on Michiganderburgh’s shit pavement, dirt and gravel roads. Sadly, I am less and less enamored with using a that cross bike for dirt road and gravel riding/racing and have been turning to my 2010 Salsa El Mariachi 99% of the time. So I decided to pick up some tubeless ready Nanos for the coming season of shit road riding. The wider girth and tubeless compatibility should be just what I am looking for. Hopefully they will be just as at ease on  [dry] Michigan singletrack for days when I want to roll the hardtail.

Continue reading →

At Long Last

16426342830_6afcc60099_c

Like my grandmother** (God rest her soul) used to say, “Jason, no matter how much of a disgusting, big, fat, lazy, good for nothing douche bag you are, something good will happen sooner or later.” I guess she was sort of right, because after two weeks of failed attempts at riding outside, I FINALLY got out for a ride on Saturday. It was nothing great; a short 20 mile ride on dirt roads that alternated between snowpack, solid, bone breaking ice and bare dirt. Still, I was out riding shortly following one of the coldest spells of the year and I have to say, after temps that were in the -25 degree range, 30 degrees in the sun felt like a warm, heroine enema covered in chocolate and espresso, scented with that Victoria’s Secret perfume that strippers wear. Mmmmm(ish)…

Continue reading →

A Plan

APLAN

It’s been a while since I had a plan or a goal when it comes to my riding and/or racing. The last time I had a plan was probably back in 2011. We moved to Michigan in the fall of 2010 and my goal for the coming season was simply to race as much as I could so I could get a read on the scene, the riding and the trails. And that’s what I did…

Continue reading →

I’m NOT homesick!

434100096_90f153e215_o

I woke up today around 8 a.m. when Wifey came in the bedroom to fetch her eye glasses. I assumed she had been by my side all night, but it turns out she fled the room at some point, claiming that it got “too hot” in the bedroom. Since it was roughly -15˚ outside, I doubt that was true and this was most likely her way of telling me that the baked ziti I made for our Valentine’s Day celebration had taken the form of a vile, warm, humid gaseous cloud of digested red wine, garlic and sausage and had exited my flabby rears way too much though the night and had caused her to seek refuge elsewhere. Much apologies to my ginger haired, bosomy Valentine of what is now 20 years. You deserve better…much, much better. But I’m sure you know that already.

Continue reading →

Good At Faking It

16343178330_cfc30aa695_c

The other day I proclaimed the words “I’m hoping to get outside and do something–ANYTHING–in the coming days.” Today I am forced to exclaim “SHITBALLMOTHERBUCK!” Because that just hasn’t happened and I am filled with a seething hate as intense as a thousand, blistering suns.

OK, not really, not at all.

Continue reading →