For the second day in a row, the Michiganderburgh winds were howling like a bean fueled anus in exit mode après an all you can eat chili bar with an endless Old Milwaukee keg that is two months past due. Gusts were getting well over 20 mph or more and a voice in my head was heard to say the phrase “FUCK THAT! I ain’t doin’ no dirt road ridin in THAT shit’.”
It’s been some time since my last post. I figured it was best not to post since the weather has been windy, rainy and crap-tastic, I haven’t been riding and I’ve been taking the Black Dog for a long, LONG walk of late. People barely want to read about an old, fat dude riding his bike, let alone read about an old, fat, depressed dude NOT riding his bike. Sigh (drink)… Those days are now sort of, almost, not quite behind me now, and I have moved on (sort of) by getting a new bike that I have no right to have really got (Is that right? It doesn’t sound right… gotten?..purchased?… fuck it, we all know I’m an ass hat).
Thanks to selling some shit, a generous Wifey and the amazing bare assed folks (don’t ask) at Terry’s Cycle in beautiful downtown Alma, Michigan, my winter racing and riding plans are now as solid as a post-Golden Corral buffet bowel movement: KAPLUNK!!! Yep, today I took delivery of the very black and very anodized Trek Farley 6. It’s sort of like Jay Z and Wham! guest starring on Drop Dead Diva. I have to say, I am pretty darn, nonplussed about it.
My plan to take a couple days off the bike for family stuff and to rest a slightly sore knee has rapidly turned into three days off the bike after coming down with an illness of some sort on Sunday. I woke up yesterday a bit achy, rocking a cough, a raspy throat and little to no desire to ride. That illness and apathy carried over to today and was compounded by a depressing, cold drizzle most of the day.
The weather is suppose to be better tomorrow, so I am hopeful that medicating, resting and hydrating today will allow me to head north and roll some fatties on wet and sandy ORV and snowmobile trails for a few hours, or at very least get out on the mud bog dirt roads outside of town.
I could blather on about some sort of bike crap, but I’m opting to turn in early instead.
Photo: Soiled Chamois file photo from an ORV road fat bike ride early this summer (or is it “last summer” now?).
Some days it’s fun to go out and pedal through the drizzle, mud and crisp fall winds; the past two days were not those days.
With yesterday’s stomach bug seemingly gone, I embraced my chance to get out amongst the corn and bean lined dirt roads of central Michigan today.
Monday’s for me are usually pretty stacked with real life duties, so riding takes a back burner. As (bad) luck would have it, today was also the day that I got hit with a bit of a stomach bug.
This is the second time in two weeks that I’ve been hit in the gut with multiple bouts of stinky leakage and I am starting to think it might be coming from my bottles; the Camelbak ones to be specific. The insides are easy enough to clean but the nozzles are sort of a bitch and I am starting to think that despite my best efforts to clean and soak them, the multiple layers of plastic and rubber that make up the nozzle are harboring the ushers of the my bowl hovering, intestinal distress. Then again, it could be from a skank batch of my White Trash Mexican food. Either way, I think I’m gonna star fresh with a new batch of bottles.
I’m hopeful that my gut will be back in running order tomorrow and I’ll be able to get a ride in. I might pack a bit of t.p. in the saddle bag, JUST in case.
Photo: by me. Taken post-ride last week when I was trying out my buddy’s Farley. Well soiled tires inside the xB, and a soiled chamois on the outside. Trying to remember if I had pants on or not when I took the photo…
My “seconds season” of riding has kicked off and I am fairly stoked with the results: ten hours and forty-five minutes in the saddle of a borrowed fat bike, a shit cross bike and two different (excellent) mountain bikes on pavement, gravel roads, dirt roads and singletrack.
Old habits are hard to break; like limiting myself to riding during daytime hours since I left my (cash paying) job in March of 2009. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but it’s funny how true it really is and what other habits–good and bad–have come to replace a post-work ride on a weekday evening.
Let me say, this blog post was NOT supposed to be this long, it was just supposed to be a few photos from last night’s ride, but then I got thinking, wandered more than a bit off track and found myself “on the couch.” The short story is that I had a great ride on Wednesday evening (as illustrated above), the long story below is to be filed under Too Much Information or Never Has So Much Thought Gone Into Deciding To Go For a Fucking Ride. I don’t encourage you to read on, but do so if you wish.
Today is Tuesday, which (as I touched on before) means two things: the time for me to get a weekday ride in and for rain to descend upon Michiganderburgh. Oh Tuesday, I might hate you. Actually, I KNOW I hate you. Stupid non-feeling, rainy ass day.
I am a firm believer in what an old bike blogging sensei once told me in a hazy drunken dream atop a rain-soaked and muddy Pennsylvania mountaintop : “If you can’t think of anything worthwhile to blog about, just post some crap photo you took while your were out riding, no one reads the shit anyway, and if they do–especially in your case–they probably think you’re a complete and utter fucking wanker.”
And so I have. ‘Cause no matter how many miles of the same freaking trails I ride, I find something that I dig and want to make mad, passionate, retinal love to. I have never said that about a road ride. Nothing against road riding, I dig it, and I’ve had some pretty freaking awesome road rides, but no matter how hard the road tries, it just ain’t as kind on the eyes.
