What a difference 48 hours can make! My last ride was a short post-rain road loop in hot, steamy, humid, conditions and had me feeling like I was breathing through a straw. Today it was 65˚ at ride time with a cool breeze coming from the north. Once I started sweating–which given my girth takes about two miles–I actually got sort of cold. At least for bit.
The life of a crap cyclist is all about choices. These choices can make or break even the crappest of planned rides.
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….
The past four or five days week has been a whirlwind of traveling, soccer tournaments, hanging out with good friends, multiple 2016/17 soccer tryouts, house selling stuff, pixel pushing, physical therapist appointments, Wifey work stress, family time, and worrying about various decisions facing our family. Thank God there were a few dirt road rides thrown in there and that the good stuff seems to be outweighing the bad stuff right now.
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!
Over the recent year I’ve talked a bit about my use of the Olympus Stylus Epic (AKA the Olympus MJU II) 35mm point and shoot camera. Well just when it looked like I was going to do that again, I decided to utilize my photo heavy site junkmilesmedia.com to do so. So if you’ve come here via the Googles to see a bit about the Stylus Epic, head over there and read the 5th installment of this ongoing experiment.
Later.
As I rapidly age and discover, and rediscover, other interests like eating and drinking to excess, worrying about the dog urine spots on my lawn, and taking photos, there are days that I just don’t feel like stuffing myself into a Superman outfit and riding. Somedays I’m content to satisfy my urge to be outside with a walk down the road to the local park and traipse around the woods for a bit with my camera and then do some yard work. Don’t judge. OK, go ahead judge, I probably need it.
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.