The past few days have been filled with random rides that featured varying degrees of misfortunes, aches, issues and minor successes, like forgetting to charge my Garmin 500 for weeks and having it die before I even made it to the dirt roads on Friday. If you do a ride and there’s nothing to record it, did it really happen? I’m joking of course, and in my case my ride, the stats are best left unknown.
This weekend has contained a variety of riding. Some of it was good, some of it was bad and some of it was outstanding. The bad were my two mountain bike rides, I could go in to how frustrated I am and how shitty I feel on the bike right now, but I won’t. Partly because I don’t have time and partly because I may have narrowed it down to the saddle height on the Superfly being a bit lower than it should be. That still doesn’t take away from the fact that my back is a mess and my hip flexor continues to make a lovely popping sound when my leg is rotated. But I am still hopeful that I can get my knots worked out soon and my position on the Superfly re-dialed in.
Yesterday was all about getting some longish Weekday Ride road miles in. Today was all about doing an easy ride out on the dirt roads for an hour and a half in the wind and seeing how the Clement X’Plor USH 700 x 35 tires I bought WAY back in January, and finally installed this week, rolled.
To say that today’s 2.5 hour ride on gravel and dirt roads was better than Saturday’s 35 minute cluster-fornication would be an understatement. Even having to trail behind The Keeper of The Gravel for 5 minutes while they graded some fresh gravel, didn’t damper the joy of FINALLY getting out on the bike for a ride after a week of bad luck, a busy family schedule and suck weather.
Today’s short ride was a long time coming. Yikes! I hadn’t been on the bike since last Saturday’s Rust Shaker XC race. A combination of windy, cold, rainy, vile weather, B-Man’s soccer, strength training in the gym and general malaise (e.g.. laying in bed praying for the end of my days) from dealing with my continued unemployment and lack of societal contribution got in the way. Hey, this is what separates the Pros, neo-Pros, fast peeps and slow, depressive fat fucktards like me.
Wifey and I finally found the title for our one old car, so we were able to get to the dealer Saturday morning and pick up our new ride. That was good. However we still need Pennsylvania to send us the title for the xB so that we can get to PA and replace or sell it and its toasted engine, that is bad. At least we have a safe, reliable vehicle to make the 6+ hour drive to Pennsylvania… that is good.
Started off my ride on Friday by hitting the dirt and gravel roads on my cross bike. Many of the roads received a fresh dump of gravel this week and are still in the process of being graded. Some of the roads (like the one above) were fine, but others had some pretty deep sandy gravel on them and the Jake’s 35c tires were not having a great time of it.
The fresh, deep gravel was slowing things down a bit and since I got a later than usual start, I ditched them and jumped on some paved roads that are part of my standard road ride.
Popov Vodka continues to be THE go-to drink for dirt road alcoholics. Maybe it was the harsher than usual winter, but I must have gone past a hundred bottles or more of the stuff in the past week. Damn… I’m sort of shocked that in all my years I’ve never tried it. Hmmm… with the week I am having, it might be time to start!
I was able to get a couple of nice rides in this weekend (both on dirt (roads) and pavement). And today I FINALLY got to ride without a winter jacket AND in knee warmers for the first time in 2014!! Most of the dirt roads were bone dry from the warm(ish) temps and relentless winds we’ve had the past few days, but some are still covered with ice, snow and LOTS of mud. Still, it was all good.
I have some pics to go through and some words to add about the rides, but other than my time on the bike, the last week and weekend have been less than stellar. Wifey took my xB back to Pittsburgh (because we thought it was the better of our two paid off high mileage cars) and the engine took a $3,000 bed shit. Ssoooooo we are in the midst of replacing the vehicle (which is still in Pittsburgh), dealing with a giant ass rental car (seriously, the Dodge Caravan is like a city fucking block long) and figuring out what to do.
Yesterday was a nice 2:25+ in the saddle out on the muddy dirt roads. It was a great ride but it’s funny how those damp, muddy rides out in the chilly spring air can take it out of you. Even after a semi-fitful/restful night of sleep (some nights that’s all I can hope for) I just didn’t have the mojo to ride today. But I did, ’cause it’s been a LONG ass winter and to turn down the chance to ride and further attempt to burn off my beer keg sized love handles might qualify as a sacrilege (depending on which faith you practice, if any). So after watching the Everton v Fulham match and a bit of the Liverpool match (before I let the DVR do its thing), I headed out to get SOMETHING in on the bike.
