It was nearly a full week since I last rode my bike. The break was not planned, nor was it enjoyed. It was five days of rain, high winds, cool November-like temps, a busy travel soccer schedule with B, and a nice bout of “who gives a f*ck?” ennui. However, per usual, just when I thought that I might never actually ride my bike again, I found myself rolling out from the cul-de-sac onto the roads of rural Michigan.
I’m on a streak of late. Sadly it’s not a good one. This streak has included one of two things: not riding, or shit rides. The past three days, the streak continued.
Tuesday marked one week since I last rode my bike. It also marked the last day I broke a sweat doing anything other than breaking a fever (or wind). The days that weren’t marred by illness were marred by heavy rain, high winds, or traveling for B’s soccer matches. And the days not marred with any of those things, were marred by a much dreaded, mentally crippling overnight trip down to Chicago to hang out with Wifey for a night while she was away at a work conference.
After last Tuesday’s ride, the rest of the week was lost to illness and shit weather. Thursday night I finally got more than 2 hours of sleep, as a result I felt the best I had in days on Friday. Not “let’s go for a ride” good, but good enough to catch up on some adulting, then hang with B-Man and Jake (the dog) in the yard of the Cul-de-sac Shack, capturing some of the backyard nature that can be found around our home with my camera. Due to a complete lack of doing anything, all of today’s images are from that afternoon of backyard slack.
As I mentioned here in my last digital dispatch of dystopian cycling life, I appear to have contracted some sort of allergy. Since Tuesday morning I’ve been dealing with itchy eyes, sinus pressure, a scratchy throat, clogged ears, coughing, endless streams of snot, and a bright red nose that only goes to further the general public’s assumption that I am some sort of jobless, beer drinking scoundrel.
Alas, it’s taken me two days, and two sleepless nights to finally admit; I don’t think this is an allergy, I think I’m ill. If it’s not illness, it’s one bastard of an allergy, and the trees from which the pollen spores fled should be burnt to the ground by hordes of torch wielding warriors on horseback, Game of Thrones style.
There was a time, now almost literally years ago, that me talking about riding dirt meant one thing– singletrack. These days most of my miles spent on dirt are of the dirt road variety. Something that I find to be a hexagonal tug of war equal parts a challenging, loved, creative spike to the vein, and a depressing, sad, pathetic state of my cycling life. The latter is rarely thought of unless I start to think about the days of racing–or just plain ol’ riding–my mountain bike in the woods for long periods of time.
This week has been an exercise in futility. The exercise of course being riding over 100 miles the past few days, and the futility being that despite those miles my weight hasn’t budged in a week. Not even a tenth of a mother f*cking goddamn pound one way or another. I blame the scale, I really do. F*ck that piece of shit.
[insert mental image of me frantically panting with a vein popping out of my enraged forehead like Ren Hoek here]
So far this week [month?] there’s been a distinct lack of doing stuff outdoors, so today’s photo is from a ride back in February. I like the photo well enough but I hate the utility lines that cut through the middle of it. Yes, through the magic of Photoshop I removed them and the pic looked fine, but it didn’t feel right. I have no problem with retouching images to get rid of sauce spatter on a food photo, the zit on your nose, those nips poking through your wife’s t-shirt, or to make myself NOT look like the poster model for the upcoming, soon to be self-produced movie Dad Bod Gone Wild, Every Day I’m Jigglin’. In other words viva la narcissism! when it comes to spatter, zits, nips, and blubber, but in landscapes and/or documentary style photography I find it creepy and wrong (like hearing your parents talk about sex). So the power lines stay.
In my last post I was riding the high of coming off an excellent (enough) month of riding. Because of that high I thought I was mentally prepared for the predicted drop in temperatures, rain, snow, and lack of outside riding that the rest of this week would surely be offering. I was wrong.
Riding three out of four days in February is cherished, even if they yield a mere 75 miles combined. Most of the miles were forced to be done on pavement, due to the dirt roads being a bottom bracket grinding, potential collarbone breaking, concoction of ice, slush, mud, standing water, and gritty sand.
