To say I had a bad night of sleep would be an understatement–I tossed, I turned, I farted, I peed, my heart rate was about 150 BPM, and had some pretty lucid dreams. Had I had three cups of coffee, a hit of blotter acid, and an eight ball of coke I would have totally understood, but didn’t. Just a crap night of sleep that had me taking refuge in the guest room so as to give Wifey a rest from my tossing, turning, and farting.
Today was sort of a hodgepodge of getting some work done, house stuff, dad stuff, soccer club stuff, and life stuff. Somewhere in there I squeezed in a lackluster dirt road ride on the Boone with my camera. Part of me thinks that I probably would been better off just aborting the ride altogether, but after spending my Monday goofing off, eating and drinking poorly I figured I better do something to burn some calories.
Wifey’s family was coming into town on Thursday, so most of my day was doing husbandly duties relating to their arrival that evening, Dad duties with B-Man, and little–OK nothing–other than my physical therapy session in the way of working out. So Friday was going to be a make up day, right? Umm….
When the birds and sun woke me up this morning at four-fucking-thirty A.M., all I wanted to do was sleep. Then it started to rain, the birds shut up, and the sunlight went away. So I slept, and it felt gooooood!
With another failed attempt at riding singletrack in the woods on Saturday, I left the idea for a while and set off on the Boone Sunday morning for a dirt road ride from the house. I hadn’t even made mile, and I had already run into three other cyclists. That was pretty sweet.
Of course I hadn’t even made it five miles when my rear tire started making an unusual noise. Actually, it’s wasn’t that unusual of a noise for rear tire on its way to being flat. Shit balls!!
I had planned on a ride at MMCC on the PrOcal on Friday, but in the end opted to put that off until Saturday, save some time by just heading out on the dirt roads for a couple of hours. The ride had a little bit of everything: sun, dusty roads, wet brined roads, sluggish deep dirt slogs, head winds, tail winds, and broke things.
It seems if there’s one thing I know how to do well, it’s pile up junk miles. Rides with no purpose other than to burn off a few beer calories and take pictures. I won’t be setting any distance records, and I won’t be getting back into any of those jeans I have stored away just in case I ever shed those 3o extra pounds, but I am getting outside on my bike and scratching that time sucking, financially useless, creative itch that God cursed me with, so I guess that’s something.
After Saturday’s flat/projectile valve core/short, make something out of nothing ride in the woods, the next two days were filled with me doing a variety of things that fell between doing nothing and everything (ish). That’s fine, an uneducated slacker needs to earn his keep somehow, right?
Sunday was a blissful day off the bike, fucking around in the pre-summer, holiday weekend sun. Late afternoon Wifey, B, and I headed south of town for a picnic with some friends. They live off one of the dirt roads I ride on often and it was a picturesque setting for a cookout. On one side of their house was a never-ending field of recently planted soy beans, and on the other was a wheat field. We had beers, grilled chicken, talked, had a bonfire, and goofed off. It was pretty darn next to perfect.
For some reason I had fitful night of sleep on Sunday (bad gas), and woke up Monday craving more and more sleep, and wishing my gut could rid itself of all that Texas Caviar I ate. In any event, I was happy to have the Memorial Day holiday to chill and get out on my bike.
I thought about driving up for another go at the MMCC trails, but was in the end was content to hang ’round the house for a bit, make some French press coffee, and then head out for a local dirt road ride.
The wind was blowing pretty steady from the west, and those first 8 miles westward were a taint-grinder, only made slightly easier by being all on pavement.
Once off of pavement, the next 17 miles would be all dirt and gravel roads featuring not-s0-bad cross winds, blessed tailwinds, and more than a few cows out munching grass in the Memorial Day sun.
The just over 30 mile loop I did has become my go-to road loop from the house. It used to be roughly 35 miles, but then we moved out of town, and four miles of paved town riding was eliminated. I keep saying that I’m going to make up those miles somewhere out on the dirt, but have yet to really do it. My slack is strong.
Once home it was time to chill on the porch with a beverage or three, watch no cars drive by the house, and listen to some tunes before throwing some chicken thighs on the grill, roasting some asparagus, and cooking up some homemade mac and cheese.
It was a really good holiday weekend, and a great way to kick off Summer 2016.
Later.
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.