Tag Archives | feeling mental

Here I Go Again, Fade To Black

By soiledchamois on May 28, 2016 in Cycling

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Thursday night I met my friend, and fellow cyclist, Mike at our local brew pub for a couple of pints. While we were sitting there watching the hockey game (LET’S GO PENS!) the song Here I Go Again by Whitesnake came on the pub’s radio. I remarked to Mike, and our barmaid Gale, that for some reason this was my high school class song (class of ’89). Even though I didn’t vote for the song (my vote was cast for Metallica’s Fade to Black), there was a certain sense of nostalgia as I listened to the song and watched the Pens, something that I did quite a bit of through the 80s and early 90s before being priced out of attending games, and turned off by the NHL’s relentless expansion teams.

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It Lives, I Lived

By soiledchamois on May 27, 2016 in Cycling

Trek-procaliber-black-agains-tree

As I mentioned in my last post, based on recent back issues and the realization that fitness and any sort or racing wasn’t going to happen this year, I had made the not-so-executive decision to sell my five month old Trek Procaliber hardtail. It was boxed and ready to ship when the bike gods intervened and the buyer decided–probably wisely so–to go with his LBS to make sure he got full warranty coverage. I in turn took this as some sort of miracle from above and proceeded to unbox the bike and build it back up.
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Dusty & Unsold

By soiledchamois on May 25, 2016 in Cycling

dustyroad

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.

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Not THAT Crazy

By soiledchamois on May 23, 2016 in Cycling

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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…

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That’ll Do

By soiledchamois on May 14, 2016 in Cycling

midA

After two attempted rides at MMCC last week that ended prematurely do to back and hip pain, I returned yet again on Friday with a different bike and a different attitude, and was treated to better results.

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Closer To Not Being Closer To The End

By soiledchamois on May 10, 2016 in Cycling

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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.

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As Expected

By soiledchamois on May 4, 2016 in Cycling

trailsnake

In the midst of various home and freelance work projects I looked at the weather forecast for the week and saw that Tuesday looked to be the one day over the next few that I could finally get out on some singletrack. Despite my left hip and lower back being in various stages of suck, I forced myself to load up the PrOcal and head up to the trails.

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Getting Settled

By soiledchamois on April 24, 2016 in Cycling

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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.

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Crisp Dirt

By soiledchamois on March 29, 2016 in Cycling

Sandhill Crane Michigan

Got out for a quick dirt road spin on the prOcal today. After a couple of rides last week I had some hipflexor issues, so I did some reading, and came up with some saddle adjustments that might help it (height + for/aft position). This helped immensely on the Boone, so I did the same with the prOcal in hopes of better comfort. Sadly, it wasn’t all that much better than last week. Well, at least not at first.

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The Storm Before the Storm

By soiledchamois on March 23, 2016 in Cycling

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Monday was more productive than usual for me since I’ve taken on the (volunteer) duties of redoing the website for B-Man’s soccer club and I was soccer balls deep into putting the finishing touches on a locally hosted version of my ideas to present to the board that night. I got a 3 mile treadmill run in, got the temp site done, got it approved at our meeting that night, and now I am up to my fatty pelvis deep in creating the real website. It’s been a lot of work, but I’ll be happy to see the club get a way better site (in my opinion) and do my part to help the club. God knows I have nothing else to offer them other than annual fees and a son who is an awesome player.

If nothing else, the club project is the continued learning/self teaching/self loathing of stuff that I was never taught in a crap two-year art school–’cause Web design classes weren’t around in 1990–and who knows, it might lead to some cash paying/bartering jobs in the future. I’ll post a link when it’s done… if it’s ever done.

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