Ride Part I, the part where I reckon I was faster than last week for no reason whatsoever.
Last week I took my road bike out for the first time in 2014. I had written that I felt swell during the 41 mile ride but was sort of pissed to come home and check my files (which serve no real purposed to a schlep like me) and see that I was over ten minutes slower than my best effort last year. Thankfully things got a tad better today, even with a slightly gimpy-ish neck and back.
Finally, correction, FINAL FUCKING-LY, a spring day to ride in. Today was the 2nd (?), maybe 3rd ride, of 2014 in just bibs and a jersey. It was bliss, but there’s more (there’s always more)…
I don’t do much pure road riding anymore and I really have only one or two paved loops, but I figured it was about time to get my road bike off the trainer and ready to roll.
I woke up at 7 this morning to the sound of more rain pelting the windows. So, I rolled over and went back to sleep. An hour later the rain was slowing down, so I forced myself out of bed and downstairs to drink some coffee, watch some sub-par football and make sure Jake (the dog) didn’t shit the house.
As I ushered Jake off the porch I cursed the continued rain and chilly temps and conceded that I would most likely end up on the trainer today. Shit.
After a match and half of football, breakfast, about 200 ounces of coffee and multiple colon evacuations, I got caught up reading some stuff about the Giro online (maybe the greatest stage race of all time). Rain be damned, I was going for a ride!
I checked the radar (it looked like I would be OK), hurriedly got my gear together, kitted up and grabbed my cross bike. I would be road riding but my road bike is still on the trainer with a nasty ass, ever balding rear tire, so the Jake would have to do. I took off down the road and I just didn’t feel right on the bike. I pedaled to the edge of town and realized my saddle was a bit too low. Shit.
Note: This post appeared on xxcmag.com in the winter of 2013. I really dig the post and since I’m not sure how much longer xxcmag.com will be live, I am preserving it here, so as not to let the post go to waste.
All too often modern-day riders and racers get caught up in Facebook, Twitter, message board and Strava pissing contests about their training, riding and racing and lose sight of the feats that our brothers and sisters have done before us.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not discounting the amazing adventures, rides and races that folks are doing on their bikes these days; i.e.Tour Divide, Iditarod Trail Invitational, Arrowhead 135, Trans Iowa, etc., etc., (all those races that I lack the talent, skills and man-giblets to ever attempt) I just think that on occasion we need to put some things into perspective and call attention to some past events, races and the vintage bad ass riders of yesteryear.
In the case of today’s post we are actually highlighting one of the hardest stages ever, in what is known as the hardest version, of what is arguably the most popular bike race in the world– The Tour de France. Stage 10 of the 1926 Tour de France to be exact.
Started off my ride on Friday by hitting the dirt and gravel roads on my cross bike. Many of the roads received a fresh dump of gravel this week and are still in the process of being graded. Some of the roads (like the one above) were fine, but others had some pretty deep sandy gravel on them and the Jake’s 35c tires were not having a great time of it.
The fresh, deep gravel was slowing things down a bit and since I got a later than usual start, I ditched them and jumped on some paved roads that are part of my standard road ride.
Another coating of snow, ice and slush overnight has made me a bit lonely to get out on the dirt roads. Sadly, a ride on roads free of ice and snow doesn’t look like it will be happening any time soon, so today I wasted some time THINKING about riding and pulling the velo-trigger on making a tire change.
I’m not sure if I’m more impressed by the wrench leaning out of the car to do his chain lubing business at the 1949 Tour de France, or the freaking tree trunk legs on Gino Sciardis. Look at those freaking things! There are roid-head body builders that don’t have legs that good.
Side note: Digging the wool jersey that Gino is sporting too.
A few days ago I mentioned that during my ride I went by a newly erected Ghost Bike memorial. While I didn’t know the teenager who lost his life at that intersection last month, as a life long “bike rider” and a cyclist of over 20 years, it was hard to ride by and not feel some sort of sadness and emotion. I felt that however sad it was to see, the bike both honored the deceased and served a reminder to motorists that we cyclists are out there. And I am pretty sure that is what I was supposed to think.
Then Monday morning (just before my 24 hour plague hit), I was chatting with a friend of mine who is a good bit older than my wife and I and has lived around our community most of, if not all of her life. In fact, she lives on one of the dirt roads that I often ride down, just a couple of miles from where the Ghost Bike now sits.
The photos in this post are from a road ride I did in the early spring of 2013. It was a chilly 42 degree morning; damp, foggy and of course had a bone chilling, Michigan breeze that contained scents of moldy corn husks, mud and manure. Continue reading