It was nearly a full week since I last rode my bike. The break was not planned, nor was it enjoyed. It was five days of rain, high winds, cool November-like temps, a busy travel soccer schedule with B, and a nice bout of “who gives a f*ck?” ennui. However, per usual, just when I thought that I might never actually ride my bike again, I found myself rolling out from the cul-de-sac onto the roads of rural Michigan.
I hadn’t been on the bike since last Tuesday; a full eight days that seemed to include everything but riding my bike. Many of those days had weather that was more like early March than late April and May, so I don’t feel like I missed out on too much, except the opportunity to burn some calories as I attempt to shed my muffin top.
After last Tuesday’s ride, the rest of the week was lost to illness and shit weather. Thursday night I finally got more than 2 hours of sleep, as a result I felt the best I had in days on Friday. Not “let’s go for a ride” good, but good enough to catch up on some adulting, then hang with B-Man and Jake (the dog) in the yard of the Cul-de-sac Shack, capturing some of the backyard nature that can be found around our home with my camera. Due to a complete lack of doing anything, all of today’s images are from that afternoon of backyard slack.
As I mentioned here in my last digital dispatch of dystopian cycling life, I appear to have contracted some sort of allergy. Since Tuesday morning I’ve been dealing with itchy eyes, sinus pressure, a scratchy throat, clogged ears, coughing, endless streams of snot, and a bright red nose that only goes to further the general public’s assumption that I am some sort of jobless, beer drinking scoundrel.
Alas, it’s taken me two days, and two sleepless nights to finally admit; I don’t think this is an allergy, I think I’m ill. If it’s not illness, it’s one bastard of an allergy, and the trees from which the pollen spores fled should be burnt to the ground by hordes of torch wielding warriors on horseback, Game of Thrones style.
Monday’s 45 mile ride was one of the best rides I’ve had in 2017. Everything just fell into place; warm, but not too warm, low wind, good legs, and a great attitude. Tuesday’s ride… not so much.
I didn’t plan to ride on Wednesday, but Thursday’s weather looked to be (and is) about as inviting as a rain-soaked, paper bag full of dog excrement, and I wanted some miles in, so I did a short ride. To my surprise, the world unfortunately plodded on, the house didn’t collapse, and no kittens died due to my 1.5 hours on the bike doing a Better Than The Trainer Ride™.
However rural Michigan did continue to provide entertainment for me, as well as make me sigh, shake my head and wonder about the state of our society, all while burning a few calories and getting some miles in. Beats watching The View in my underwear while eating raw cookie dough.
I got out yesterday for another go at the new-ish 37.5 loop that I concocted, this time in reverse. It was a bit colder at ride time that I would have liked, and even with a base layer the man nips were on full blast. Cool, but it sure beats riding in full on winter gear.
Only 16 of the 37.5 miles are on dirt roads, but dirt roads are dirt roads, and I’ll take what I can get during a ride.
Playing a bit a catchup here after a busy, rainy Thursday which, doing stuff wise, only included 40 minutes of Dreadmill® running, and lifting heavy stuff for no reason in the basement of the Cul-de-sac Shack. So here on Friday we’re lookin’ at Wednesday, and ride-wise, I don’t like what I’m seein’.
Monday was a hodgepodge of adulting, fruitless attempts at a design project that I volunteered to help out with, and other crap-o-lah like lifting heavy things for no reason in the basement. All of that was done while dodging rain drops, enjoying spring temperatures, and waiting for some promised evening thunderstorms to arrive and send those spring-like temps back to into the 40s and 50s, thus making for a more “normal” Michigan spring. Like the saying goes “If your nipples ain’t hard, you ain’t in Michigan.”
Given the nearly endless wintry rain, snow, wind deluge that mid-Michigan experienced last week, I was thinking that the week would leave me with nothing but a case of pent-up, crotch thumping ride rage. Thankfully, by the end of the week, Ma Nature got her shit together and threw us a few days of crap free weather. Thank you.