Riding has been non-existent for over a week now. Along with doing a crap ton of stuff to get our house ready to sell, I’ve been doing some volunteer design work for the soccer club and some freelance stuff for the shop. The only physically active things I’ve done has been some running lumbering on the treadmill and the lifting heavy things for no reason.
After a weekend that featured back to back rides on the Boone, I haven’t been on a bike since. Other than some borderline useless Stankment™ based workouts, pre-moving chores, and some free design work for B’s soccer club, I’ve been a slug.
Wednesday I was jonzing to get out on the bike in the morning, but a winter storm was barreling down on Michigan and I didn’t want to get caught out in the snow storm, so I opted to attempt hiking in the woods again.
Last week was a strange beast indeed; one day I was riding snow and ice-covered roads in 25˚ temps, the next day it was 50˚ and I was watching debris fly by my kitchen window as winds gusted from 20 to 50 MPH. The next two days I was riding my bike on snow free roads with a grin on my face. Well, at least on Sunday I was grinning, because for nearly half of Saturday’s ride I seemed to be pedaling directly into constant headwind thinking that I should have just stayed at home watching crap FA Cup footy instead of riding.
I was this close to writing a blog post about how the weather’s got me down and how I feel like a paper white turd. But just as I began to type I realized that every year since the winter of 2006 I have reached a point in the winter that I write some post about how the dark days, slush, ice, cold, and muck of winter have finally beat me down like a $5 hooker with an angry pimp. I guess just in writing those first sentences I have written it again, but I will go no further. Winter has not beat me down, but the lack of riding and physical activity has beat me down and has me looking and feeling like pre weight loss, pre pedo, pre jailed Subway Jared. Or like me circa 1990.
Thursday, 6:14 AM
On Wednesday I was filled with nervousness for a variety of reasons; the proud, yet daunting reality that my boy was turning 12, waiting for a response from our real estate agent concerning an offer Wifey and I made on a home, and I was attempting not to think about a job interview scheduled for Thursday morning. All of those things are good and/or potentially great things, but my mind can’t focus on too much change at once, so I knew I needed to get outside to blow the mental stink off of me.
That rear brake cable.
As expected, there has been little no time in the saddle since Saturday’s foray out onto the snirt roads. Most of that is due to doing a crap ton of other shiz that seemed more important than freezing my tits off out on some desolate frozen dirt road.
I have a solitary, not at all lofty, goal when it comes to my winter riding–get outside at least once a week for a real ride. See, not that lofty. However it can still be pretty hard to accomplish.
I had two different, yet similar, plans for doing stuff Wednesday:
A. Drive north a bit and ride some trails that the Godfather informed me might be swell for fat biking. Take some pics.
B. Drive north a bit and snowshoe some trails that the Godfather informed me might be swell for fat biking–or might not be–depending on the snowfall and recent grooming efforts. Take some pics.
While the northern lower peninsula of Michigan has been enjoying some steady snow, further south we have been stuck in a continuous mix of melting snow in the day, freezing snow in the night, along with ice, slush, rain and other wintertime fecal matter. The days since Saturday’s race have been a wasteland of [fun] physical activity and I find myself grasping at any legal means to keep myself motivated through the soggy, gray, wet crap-tastic days.
Let me start by saying that this is NOT a “race report.” Ever fattening forty-four year old guys who haven’t raced in nearly two years shouldn’t write race reports. However, this is my blog, and pretty much my ride journal, so to an extent it is a race report. Just don’t expect much “racing.”
As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to go against the advice of doctors, priests, lawyers, heads of state, relatives, my dog, and public opinion by signing up for my first bike race in over twenty months: The Fat Chance at Crystal Mountain. I thought it made perfect sense to come out of race retirement in the middle of winter and do a fat bike race.
I’ve done a shit ton of XC and endurance mountain bike races, a bunch of gravel races, a few cross races (which I’ve sort of blocked out), and one road race (which, like being touched “down there” by a shirtless ice cream truck man, I pretend never happened). However this would be only my second fat bike race. How bad could it be?
Bad. Not all bad, but at the end it was clear that there is still no cure for stupid.
