Tag Archives | fucking weather

Snirty Sanchez

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Make no mistake about it, I hate winter. I hate the grey skies, the ice, slush, snow and cold, damn I hate the cold! And don’t even get me started on the ball suck holidays like Christmas and New Years that are thrown into the winter mix; I hate it all. BUT, winter is indeed here and the snow that has been coming down the past couple of days was a sure indication of that. When I woke up this morning and saw that snow that was covering the roads and ground I thought today just might be perfect for getting out on the dirt roads for a ride. I was only half right, which is only slightly better than being half wrong.

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Winter Shenanigans

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With winter here– whether I want to admit it or not–the time has come to plan some shenanigans for the next couple of months to half year that makes up a Michigan winter. I have said goodbye forever to cross-country skiing (not that I ever did it that much) and will be spending as much time as I can (baring crashing and jacking myself up) riding my fat bike or at very least snowshoeing (under the pretence of making singletrack rideable).

I will also be trying to get between one and twenty fat bike races in, and as you can see below, greater Michiganderburgh is ripe with possibilities, with races going down from Fun Promotions, the Great Lakes Fat Bike Series, the Northern Michigan Short’s Brewing Fat Bikes Series and the Winter Rush series from late December through March.

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Is it winter?

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As I rode today I tried figuring out how I would describe our current weather. Fall has pretty much come, colorfully shit the bed, changed the sheets and left, but it’s not exactly winter now either… or is it?

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Gobsmacked

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The dictionary dictators amongst others define the word gobsmacked the following way…

gob·smacked

1 ˈɡäbˌsmakt/
adjective BRITISH informal
adjective: gobsmacked
utterly astonished; astounded.
With reference to being shocked by a blow to the mouth, or to clapping a hand to one’s mouth in astonishment.

Not me, while I have no doubt that is the correct definition, I would amend it to include a second:

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Getting By

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I mentioned a while back that I decided to not re-join the gym this fall and winter. One of the only reasons I went back to the gym last fall was to give myself something else to do besides sit and ride to nowhere on the stationary trainer during the winter. Well, once I got my (now sold) Pugsley late last January, I found it increasingly harder to go to the gym rather than ride my bike. Having a viable option to ride outside in the Michigan snow now made lifting weights seem just as stupid as it sounds… just when I started to see real progress and added strength.

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Cold, Fat & Dirty

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For the past couple of weeks, winter has slowly been poking its frozen nose into mid-Michigan. Thankfully, there has been no long-term success. Successful or not, the past week was gray, cold and windy. Christ, I literally hadn’t seen the sun since late last Tuesday afternoon and it was so windy Friday that riding was made impossible, with winds gusting anywhere from 10 to 50+ MPH at times! I am pretty sure I saw a small child blow by the kitchen window at one point.

For the most part, the week was real warm bath and razor blade type weather, and the two days I was able to ride, it took every ounce of mental will power I had to force my jiggling muffin top out the door for a ride. It’s not that conditions were THAT bad, it’s that I am that mentally weak and apathetic.

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The Sum of The Ride

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I once again found the will to get out into the various shades of gray and fecal brown that make up the landscape of a late fall in Michigan to ride my bike for a bit. Today was pretty much the same sort of day as yesterday, except I went a mile or two longer and did a slightly different loop. A good loop, with some nice punchy climbs on loose sand and gravel, but sadly, it was a short loop.

I blathered at length yesterday about the Michigan gray and forcing myself to ride my bike when I would have rather been holed up in bed, snuggled up to the warm, ample bosoms of a red-headed Jezebel and an IV hooked up to a bottle of gin, so I will avoid doing so again today and just post some pics. The photos–like the cattle pic above–pretty much sum up any ride I do on the dirt roads around Michiganderburgh and what I encounter on my rides.

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The Quick & The Slow

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Some days time restraints, responsibilities and real life issues demand that a ride be short and to the point. And some days it’s just an overwhelming desire to be out in the chilly, depressing, gray, misty fall air for as little time as possible. Today was a mixture of both those things.

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A/V Tuesday

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My planned mountain bike ride with a buddy of mine got rained out by storms this morning. I was not real thrilled with that turn of events, and spent my morning drinking coffee, perusing the interweb-o-sephere and “acting like a caged animal” according to Wifey who was working at home today and apparently none to thrilled to have me pacing around, growling in my coffee about not riding.

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