After a successful Monday morning doing my best interpretation of trail running for 5 miles, I wanted to do something slower on Tuesday, as well as get some time with my camera.
I chose to go to the Bundy Hill Preserve, the highest point in the county, coming in at a whopping 1,270 feet above sea level. It’s no mountain, that’s for sure, but it’s a beautiful wooded area, and its location is along a very rural gravel road that I often frequented on my bike due to the series of climbs on it.
I’ve never thought of myself as Nostrafuckingdamus. Still, I know a little about a lot of useless shit. One of those things is knowing that despite the vast (not really) estate of the Cul De Sac Shack being void of snow and two full days of sun (yes, hours of sunshine for the first time since December, I believe), the woods and trails would still be filled with a mixture of melting mush and hard-packed slippiness.
These are desperate times, and I am a desperate man.
This week, my longing to walk and hike on snow-free trails drove me (literally) to a couple of my old Dirt Road Launching Pads1 to use as a “trailhead.”
As I write this, it’s a dark, cold, icy Saturday morning in mid-Michigan, and I can’t make up my mind if I want to go for a photo walk in the icy woods, go to the gym to lumber nowhere fast on the Dreadmill or go back to the Bed of Torment for a second sleep; the world is my mother friggin’ oyster as they say.
Somewhere between morning bowel discharges, too much coffee, and my 3 egg white omelet with veggie sausages, I was made aware via a variety of Instagram posts that today is the Barry-Roubaix gravel race near Grand Rapids.
July ended with increasing miles on the bike and decreasing numbers on the scale. Still, my plan for Sunday was to take the day off from workouts or rides and just goof off.
That was the plan, then about an hour after I wrote a blog post and started said plan for goofing off, I headed to the Not So Stankment to get on the Dreadmill. In other words, the plan failed.
Shortly after hitting the publish button on my last post and digesting my daily Soiled Egg (White) Sammich, I gathered my bottles and gear, found my fender, stuffed myself into some too-small bibs and the only jersey I have that fits, and headed out for a SLIGHTLY Better Than The Trainer Ride™ before any rain moved back into the area.
Wednesday, I needed to shoot over to the local lab to get some bloodwork done, and then it was home to the savory arms of a 225 calorie Soiled Egg Sammich2 before getting into some kit, looking at myself in the mirror, thinking about taking the kit off and downing a bottle of gin, aborting that boozy plan for some reason, and then going for a short 20-mile dirt road ride that hurt like it was 120.
My newfound custom of getting up early continued on Sunday, and with that, I got a shit ton of stuff done, including baking some crispy, crunchy toasted homemade muffin bread and installing an Ortleib bag bracket on the Fattishson (The Roscoe’s current name before it becomes a 29er in the future).
Then I decided to ride.
The past week was filled with miles on the Dreadmill, some prison-style weight training, and a tall drink or twelve of “Well, at least January is fucking over.”
I took some pics around the Cul-De-Sac-Shack (two of which you see here), but outdoor activities were limited due to a winter storm and my distaste for being cold.
Yeah, I know, nothing makes one sound old like talking about the weather, but I’m going to talk about it anyway. I’m also going to talk a little about bikes, which is something I rarely do these days on this cycling blog turned outlet for idiocy.
On Saturday, I actually surprised myself. No, I didn’t finally eat that 30 piece party tray pizza from Gluttonz Pizza®. I said I might ride, confessed that it probably wouldn’t happen, and then I rode.
