Posts Tagged → dirt road life

Notes on Gravel (Dirt Roads)

notes

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

gravelroadoflust

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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Dirt Rollin’

lonelydirtroad

Even though I didn’t work yesterday, I still didn’t ride (call me slack, it’s OK). I needed to catch up on what seemed like a million different things around the house as well as prepare for my buddy Dave and his family to stop by for dinner and to spend the night. I have been friends with Dave for fifteen years or more; we used to work together at the newspaper back in Pittsburgh before he moved to Florida, I was “co” best man in his wedding and we still have a strong relationship via texts and email. Sadly his wife’s grandmother recently passed away and she was being buried in her home state of Michigan. Since all their family were coming up for the services, they extended their trip to see some of Michiganderburgh’s sites and to stop by and see us (a true Michigan sideshow attraction) before heading back to F-L-A this morning. It was awesome to catch up with him and to finally meet his two kids in person.

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Quick Dirt Roll

barnrolling

Last night we had another evening of heavy, better grab a life jacket type rain. In my opinion, here in Michigan, we get less rain on daily basis than I was used to dealing with in western PA, but when we do get rain, we get freaking RRRRAIN! It seems to just freaking pour down thick ropes of water.

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Catching Up On Nothingness

wettreesnat

After working all day at the shop on Thursday, my plan for Friday was to get in some miles on the Boone. Sadly, that didn’t happen. Instead it pissed down Old Testament-esque rains all morning and the rest of the day was filled with FINALLY getting a permanent crown put on one of my teeth and dealing with a backed up main drain which resulted in plumbers in the house to snake it. The only highlight was celebrating Wifey’s 44th birthday.

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Back to Rambling (Again)

gravelmailbox

Just when I started to think that I might never ride my bike again; I did. I rode last Wednesday then my work schedule (who’d a thunk that would happen?), appointments and weather kept me out of the saddle for four days in a row. While it’s easy to blame all those things, it was mostly just laziness that prevented me from riding. What can I say, I’m pretty swell at being lazy.

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And The Fun Begins

pavementendsfunbegins

After feeling good on the bike yesterday, I found myself creeping around the house last night and early this morning like someone repeatedly hit me in the back with a baseball bat. Me thinks that my lower fat back did not take kindly to the hip stretches that I did yesterday, oddly enough, done to relieve me lower back pain! Typical me-ish-ness.

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Tuesday Multi-Surface

flowersandgrainfieldsetc

On Tuesday I got out for a quick 35 mile multi-surface road ride. There was little that was impressive about the ride: it was more pavement than dirt, featured little elevation gain and it wasn’t all that long. What was impressive about it was it was a perfect sunny day, there was little wind, I felt strangely good on the bike, and the bike itself [the Trek Boone Disc 5] continues to impress and woo me with its charms, whether I am on dirt, gravel or paved roads.

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