Somewhere in the last ten days it went from being 39˚ with sleet and snow, to crusty, dry, and 87˚. Long gone (thankfully) are the soft, deep muddy rutted roads with, pockets of standing water, slush, and half-frozen agricultural smegma. For now they have turned to grids of rolling, 30s era Dust Bowl-like roads and my skin is sunburned red like a baboon’s butt.Having said that, I would rather fishtail through a hot cloud, manure flavor dirt than a freeze my sagging man-udders off. Fact.
I gotta say, last week was a darn good week’s worth of riding. There was no singletrack, and the rides weren’t all that long, but I managed to get 8.5 hours worth of riding in, which isn’t too bad for a beer loving, burrito eating, crap cyclist with a bad back like myself. Speaking of my back…
I mentioned in a post earlier this week that we had some absolutely crap and freezing weather here last weekend. Until last weekend, I had never seen snow in May in my entire life…EVER. All that seems to be frozen, E. coli riddled water under the bridge right now, as the past three days have been a springtime enema of perfect 65˚ temps, bright sunshine, calm winds, and blue sky. So, as busy as I’ve been with some projects, I’ve been making sure to squeeze some ride time in.
After Friday’s pretty OK, could have been better but I’ll take it, mountain bike ride, Mother Nature got her giant panties in a bunch and cast wind, rain, cold temps and snow (yes, snow in May) down upon the central Michigan area on Saturday and Sunday. It really was a kick in the longing for a real spring teeth. The weather didn’t get in the way of me riding, but a weekend packed with soccer matches, and MPSC commitments did, and I have to tell you, that cold and blustery weather made for some cold ass soccer watching.
Tuesday I was pretty bogged down with home, work, and family stuff, so I snuck out for a quickie. Just before I got ready to roll, I checked the weather and it said there was a seven mile an hour wind coming from the east. That was fine with me, anything in the single digits around these parts is a blessing from the cycling gods above. However as I sat in the garage bucking down my shoes, I heard the garage door rattling. “Hmmm…. that’s a pretty strong seven mile an hour wind I thought to myself.”
Playing Catch Up, Monday 1o:50 PM
This blog is funny in that if I go one day without posting something, I get the itch to post something; whether it be some unfunny commentary, tales of one of my short and shitty rides, or just a couple of photos. However if I go more than four days without posting I reach blissed out on Valium and sleep med levels of apathy about ever posting anything again. Then once I hit five days without posting something, apathy gives way to creative ennui, or I actually go for a ride and have something that I feel like blathering on about.
After B’s soccer match on Saturday I stuffed my ever-expanding body into my ever shrinking kit and headed out for a quick 25 mile ride before dinner. As I rolled along dirt roads in the crisp air that qualifies for spring in Michigan I realized that I had ridden right through the Boone’s 1 year birthday last month without any acknowledgement whatsoever. I believe we were moving that day, so I guess I have an excuse. However I hope to make up for all that here today.
I had hoped with our move over I would be back to a semi-normal riding schedule. Sadly, this week things have not really come together. First weather got in the way (hard to believe it’s nearly May given how cold and crap our weather is), then a long “to do” list was presented to me by our realtor in regards to our old home which is going on the market in two to one hundred ninety-six hours.
I, er I should say we, are finally getting completely settled into the new crib and totally digging it on so many different levels. As a bonus I finally have a desk for my Mac and junk, and it only took me four hours to put together. Thanks Staples! (Not really, maybe next time you could get it shipped in 500 different pieces instead of just 400?). In any event, I have a desk and it looks swell in my office. Even better than finally getting settled in a new crib is getting in two-days in a row in of riding.
Knowing full well that most of my Friday ride time window, would be taken up with the closing on our new crib, I made sure to sneak out for another quick spin on Thursday. It wasn’t the greatest of rides, and I was feeling sluggish from being a slug, but it got the job done.
