When I woke up this morning I had no REAL intention of riding. I figured that I would sit around, watch a ton of soccer football all day (BPL, Bundesliga and maybe even the lackluster MLS), drink some adult beverages, eat some white trash Mexican food, then head to bed, where I would sleep like shit for eight hours before starting another cursed week on this shit hole of a planet on Monday.
I had to spend two days off the bike as I took care of a variety of house issues that included HVAC repairmen and appliance delivery drivers. Oh well, life happens. With that said, I was anxious to get out for a ride on Friday, but I was also geeked to spend some time snapping some pics with my DSLR. This would normally call for one of my fat bike rambles in which I roll at a slug’s pace around Michiganderburgh snapping pics of rural dirt road life as I see it. However, I just wasn’t craving a slug’s pace, so I brought my 2010 Salsa Ti El Mariachi out of retirement, put my Porcelain Rocket DSLR Slinger on it, and headed out for a ride.
I took advantage of this morning’s cloud cover to avoid the blazing sun and get out for a ride before the “fit but fat” thwarting Michiganderburgh heat and humidity had a chance to do any sort of thwarting to a fat man such as myself. To paraphrase/fuck up an old adage– I was making hay while the sun DIDN’T shine. Or at least riding slowly by hay while the sun didn’t shine.
Saturday was spent sweating my balls off outside while I doing my best to make a home improvement as crap as I possibly could and with an eye on Sunday to get a ride in.
This week has sort of been all over the place; one day I’m doing nothing but random house stuff, the next day I’m walking around in the woods like a crazed hermit with a camera, the next day I’m on my cross bike north of town rolling on fast, hard packed dirt roads, and the next day I’m on my fatty, rambling over, wet, muddy dirt roads in ninety degree heat for just under thirty miles [I think thirty miles on a stock fat bike equals fifty on a regular bike, but I might be wrong on that].
After a beautiful day weather wise on Friday, things got damp and rainy overnight and into the morning. When I woke up Saturday morning it was dank, dark and rainy, and all I really wanted to do was lay around and watch the first matches of the 2015/16 BPL season.
With time on my hands the past couple of weeks I have been trying to squeeze in a bunch of stuff before fall arrives: riding, hiking with Wifey, picture takin’, hanging out with the boy, fishing, catching up on all my normal house stuff and getting some estimates for some home improvements we need done before/if/when we decide to move to another part of the MP area. Not all of that is fun, but it’s not all that bad either. It really the least I can do whilst Wifey is out slaying figurative bacon to bring home. Not to mention the stuff that IS fun is PRETTY FREAKING FUN and I am lucky to be able to do it. The crap parts are just things that everyone has to deal with.
Today I had the same plan as yesterday: go for a ride in the late afternoon/early evening on my fatty, take my DSLR, ride about 25 miles, and stop to take pics every so often when something interested me. Not the most intense of workouts, but riding twenty-five miles or rolling dirt and gravel roads on a 32 pound fat bike into the wind is still a pretty good workout. More importantly I would have a chance to make up for yesterday’s creative clusterfuck in which I forgot to put the SD card in my camera.
Today featured a very, VERY short ride. It was a short ride for one reason and one reason only: wind.
I tried to get out early this morning for a dirt road ride, I really did. Sadly, my “early” turned out to be 9:45, and things were already starting to really heat up around Michiganderburgh. We get less than ten or so HOT days a year here and today was predicted to be one of them with temps going up into the low nineties by afternoon. Which if you’re from Michigan feels like you’ve been set on fire and thrown into a pool of gasoline.
