I had hoped to return to the dirt roads for some miles on Tuesday morning, but heavy thunderstorms overnight and morning rain had me thinking otherwise. The idea of the fresh dirt put down by the county combined with heavy rain was not something I felt like putting myself—or my drivetrain—through. So, I headed into the wet woods to stomp out a couple of miles with my camera before getting home to do what I do. Which is hard to put into words, so I won’t.
If I could have had added a subtitle to this post I think the full title would have been Old School Renewal, The Good, The Bad, and The Goddamn Ugly.
It’s April 17th, and we Michiganders remain slung over a barrel with our snow pants down to our ankles as the rhythmic slapping of relentless ice, snow, and wind continues.
B’s school is closed for the second day in a row, and I haven’t been in the saddle of my bike in 5 days. In fact, no stuff has been done in nearly 5 days: weights go unlifted, the treadmill remains stagnant, and the pedals of my trainer bike remain in the same position which I left them weeks months ago. Running shoes and hiking boots remain closeted, and my mind has deteriorated into a vile mushy substance usually scraped off the bottoms of shoes while muttering obscenities and trying not to inhale.
Last Sunday was April 1st, is also known as April Fools Day. It was also a week ago and the last time the saggy lumps of flesh I call an ass hit the saddle of a bike; a cold morning ride that yielded a mere 20 miles and some crap photos.
For me, this time of year between winter and actual spring is one of the worst times. It can often LOOK like it’s a beautiful spring day but upon leaving the house you quickly realize that it’s only 30˚ with a 20+ MPH wind which makes it feel like it’s 15˚ and despite the winter gear that you stuffed your muffin top into you want to turn around, head home and crawl into your still warm bed in the Chamber of Farts.
The “you” in the above scenario is, of course, me, and this happened to me on my rides on both Friday and Sunday and resulted in varying degrees of suck that left me wanting a new hobby that doesn’t require freezing my face off and uncontrollably cussing into the deafening wind like a Tourettes riddled fat man in a lycra sausage casing.
The past few days I have continued my ongoing silent protest of the relentless Michigan winter by refusing to stuff myself—and the 50 extra pounds of human flesh I haul around on my frame—into various layers of form-fitting gear in the name of a crap bike ride. Those 15 minutes of flesh stuffing can be used better by doing things like Googling an old Judas Priest song that popped up in a recent dream, watching pasta water boil, reheating leftover chili (so good!), staring blankly at the wall, taking photos of Jake (the dog), or waiting for beer to rapidly cool in the freezer while playing EA Sports FIFA 18.
The ass end of February/dick tip of March was semi-kind to me as far as getting outside to ride my bike. Sure, there was the minor schedule alteration due to an armed suspect at large in the area, a nice helping of psycho winds, and various dad duties to complete but as I’ve said before; at this time of year I am grateful for 1 ride a week and last I got 3! As a chubby, food loving, beer drinking, ex-crap amateur racer that only occasionally gives a shit about anything at all—let alone riding his bike—I’ll take that all day long! But then that ended.
Friday was not the day I expected on so many levels.
No, this isn’t a post-Valentine’s Day entry about lost love. However, it has everything to do with losing the excitement and mystery of travel.
Last week started with about six or seven inches of snow and icy roads that forced schools to cancel. Somewhere in the middle of the week the temps warmed up towards 50˚ and the aforementioned snow all but melted. Then come to the end of the week the temps dropped again and froze the roads solid which aided me in finally getting out for a ride.
