Saturday–by the grace of God (as well as Buddha, Allah, WICCA, Lucifer, Jake The Dog, that crazy guy that screams Bible verses at you in the park and everything and anything else that is holy, unholy and plain old strange in this world) is meant for one thing: bike ridin’!! Watching football (proper football), comes in a VERY close second, but thankfully matches happen early enough in the day for we Americans, that once the season gets started (NEXT WEEK!) it shan’t interfere with the divine holy/unholy/strange grace bestowed upon Saturday and the bike riding that is to be done within its hours.
Not wanting disappoint the grace bestowed by any deity, I made sure that after a tolerable night’s sleep and a breakfast fit for a king (I think coffee and a peanut butter and jelly tortilla qualifies) I gussied up in my best bike ridin’ clothes and headed out to ride some dirt.
My plan was to do as I have on some recent rides: roll my Superfly for one big 15+ mile lap, then loop back to the car, change over to the tank-like Pugsley and ride an addition ten miles on the Blue Loop just to mix things up and goof off.
Not very sadly, I sort of failed.
I was having too much fun on the Superfly, and after a fun, dirty, multi-color coded loop of Blue, Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Green, Blue Trail (or something like that) I rode right past the xB–noticeably weighed down by the Pugsley in the hatch–and back into the woods to do the ten-mile Blue Trail.
Conditions were perfectly warm, sandy and dusty (as seen by the bits of trail clinging to anything remotely damp, such as skin and water bottles like the one above). I physically and mentally felt good over the 26 mile ride, my back continues to be nearly pain-free (making rides WAY more fun) and my fitness is getting back to where it was earlier in the season when I still had high hopes for doing more sub-par racing this season. While I can’t say I’m making any progress in the weight loss department, I AM happy to be able to ride nearly pain-free with enough fitness to thoroughly enjoy what Saturday is meant for.
Now to go do what Sunday is meant for (I’ll give you one guess).