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.
My Monday turned a bit nutso as Jake (the dog) went and got himself a yeast infection that required an emergency trip to the vet. I told him he was asking for it with his muscular, thick thighs and want to wear too tight, humid, crotch-jungle inducing leather pants, but he insisted on wearing them anyway. Stupid dog!
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™.
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.
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…
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.
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)…
To say this week was less than stellar for “real” riding would be an understatement. My week thus far has consisted of three rides on the trainer and one “run” on the treadmill. In other words it was a week of shitty, fake exercise.
My mid-winter blog posts generally fall into four possible topics: riding my fatty outside, cooking up grub, riding the trainer, or Jake (the dog). The first of those topics is only mildly interesting, even to my closest of friends and family (even that is a stretch). The other three topics could surely be left unwritten about by me, especially on what purports itself to be a cycling blog. Well, since I didn’t ride outside today, I figured, I’d go ahead and talk about all three of those other things. Like they say, if you throw enough shit (or in this case shitty blog topics) against a wall, something is bound to stick.
Thursday has quickly become my day to head northward and ride the trails at Hanson (not to be confused with Hanson). It has also become my day to ride with my friend Napper. He co-owns the shop I frequent, and I have no f*cking job, so his work schedule is flexible and mine is non-existent. Thus our partnership in this Thursday (thankfully non-sexual) affair.
