The past week and holiday weekend was not as conducive for riding as I would have hoped: there was travel to Kalamazoo and back for B’s soccer tournament amongst other time eating activities. With that I found myself rideless since I rode dirt last Wednesday, but after a good night’s sleep on Sunday night, and a lazy Memorial Day morning around the house processing the hundreds of photos I took at the tournament, I finally got out for a ride; another ride on dirt, real dirt… singletrack dirt.
In my last post I alluded to the fact that I was starting to get the itch for some actual mountain biking. From the best I could tell (looking back through this shit blog) it’s been roughly 8 months since my tires last rolled on singletrack. A variety of issues contributed to that lack of singletrack, most of which was some ongoing back and hip pain when mountain biking. However I am pretty geeked to say that on Wednesday I finally got out on singletrack, and it was just as fun as I remembered it!
I woke up Thursday and did my normal Jason things: multiple coffees, multiple dumps, wake B, make lunches, get B his breakfast, make and eat my breakfast, check that B brushed his teeth, make sure Wifey remembers her travel mug, etc., etc. Then as soon as Wifey and B were out the door I laid down for an hour of what I call “second sleep.” Pretty much an hour for me to lay there and think about what I need to do and try to forget about the fact that I got up at 6 AM without a paycheck in sight.
Whilst I laid there digesting breakfast, what I needed to do, the never f*cking ending Trump shit show and my hatred of said orange skinned Hitler, the mouse (or bat) living (mouse, now dead) in our garage wall, and whether or not I’ll ever have a real job again, I got a text from L.C. at Terry’s filling me in on the condition of Sally’s Trail down in Alma (slow, but rideable he said). Little does L.C. know, but I farted in his general direction, turned over an farted again (I had Mexican the night before. Maybe I should build a wall? Around my anus!!! Sorry).
This morning as I ate a hastily thrown together peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and threw back a large gulp of Starbucks® K-Cup® coffee (don’t judge!), I was hit with a memory from my time doing endurance mountain bike races, many of which required overnight stays.
Until I got too soft and started opting for crap hotel rooms–often given the “Cuckhold Room®'” against my wishes, even though I explained that my buddy’s wife was only there because we were too cheap poor to get our own rooms–most of the time those overnighters meant camping; either in a leaky, crap tent (why did it ALWAYS rain???), or the back of my [insert your choice of boxy, imported vehicles I’ve owned here].
Friday morning, just before Wifey and B took off for PA to visit her family, Wifey gave me a hug goodbye, I copped a feel, and she told me to have a good weekend, but not to do that thing where I ride singletrack, experience back and hip pain the whole time, get depressed, and come home and drink to kill the mental and physical pain of being old and shit. My mind and mouth said “yes dear,” but my heart and legs said “Fffffuckkk off! You don’t own me woman! I can do what I want, yo!” (not really, not even one tiny little bit).
And with that I was good. I ate some breakfast, drank coffee, looked at the inter-web-o-sphere, and then went for a 31 mile dirt road ride south of town.
My Garmin 500 shit the bed like Spud from Trainspotting last week, and no longer mounts up on my Mac. Despite hours of Googling, scouring bike forums, multiple resets, bitching, moaning, and nearly smashing it to pieces with a meat hammer, it just refuses to cooperate. Since then I’ve felt completely lost on the where’s, when’s, and what’s of my riding. Yes, those rides could probably be summed up with words like crap, crapper, and crappier, but I like to actually see the multiple layers of statistical crap on my computer screen.
With my Saturday morning sadly void of Premier League football to watch, and the Champions League final not coming on until around 3 that afternoon, I decided to once again return to woods for some miles on the PrOcal.
As I mentioned in my last post, based on recent back issues and the realization that fitness and any sort or racing wasn’t going to happen this year, I had made the not-so-executive decision to sell my five month old Trek Procaliber hardtail. It was boxed and ready to ship when the bike gods intervened and the buyer decided–probably wisely so–to go with his LBS to make sure he got full warranty coverage. I in turn took this as some sort of miracle from above and proceeded to unbox the bike and build it back up.
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Soiled Chamois file photo.
Thursday was a day of nothing but house duties and workish stuff. I could have squeezed a ride in, but that wouldn’t be proper for someone like myself who seemingly strives to be as crap as possible. What I WAS able to do though was catch up with a few friends last night and plan a Friday ride at MMCC with my friend Ryan. I’m sure glad he had the day off and wanted to ride, because on this gray, windy Friday all I wanted to do was climb under the covers with my favorite bulldog and take a day long sad nap.
Today was my first time on trails in a long time. It was also my first time on the newly acquired Trek Procaliber hardtail. My initial reactions are damn positive, but as with any new ride, there are some things I’ll need to dial in the future. Here is what I learned about the bike (and me) on its maiden voyage…
