First ride of the Year

So, after a few days of warm weather here in Michigan, I decided I should ride to work last Thursday. Now when I say warm I should preface that with the fact that the last few weeks I don't think we've seen anything much above 35 degrees. We've had a lot of days with a high around 15 degrees! So knowing that Thursday's ride in would be around 40 and thre ride home would be around 35, I went for it! Well, my alarm goes off at 5:10 like it supossed to, and i jump out of bed, hit snooze and hop back into bed. Then I hear the wind going through the trees in the backyard. I knew that noise. You only hear it like that when the wind is coming out of the West. It was going to be a fun first ride of the year....

The alarm goes off again and I have to make a decision. Lucky for me I picked to go ahead and get out of bed. I sneak into Charlotte's room and close her door (sidenote, we have to keep her door open at night because her room has been getting really cold - mostly due to the West wind). Then I go to our bathroom and start getting dressed for the ride in. I decide on Four layers. Wool, then a jersey, then a long sleev jersey, and the windbreaker. I have the bib-knickers and the heavy pants for my legs. Wool socks and booties for the feet. I think it took me as long to get dressed and undressed as it did to ride in. I end up eating breakfast packing lunch and having everything ready to go by 6:00. The cucko clock was going off just as I was leaving the basement. I head west out of the subdivision on my trusty fixed gear and think, what the heck am I going in this headwind! I reach for a lower gear and remember I don't have any. I think about coasting, but once again, not a choice on the fixed gear. Then I realize why people say fixed gears are good training bikes - they don't let you cheat. Before getting out of the sub I consider turning around, but there is no way I was going to let myself do that. I would feel like crap if I had done that. Would have really felt bad because it was the day I get another year older. I didn't mention that did I. Thursday was my birthday. I turned 34, so the ride was a birthday present for myself. Time out on the bike. Too bad I'm not in any kind of shape to enjoy it! I continue on and make the left turn onto Wolf Lake Road and head South, that wasn't so bad. I don't even feel the cross wind. I tell myslef it may have slowed down a bit. The ride shouldn't be too bad. I get into a rythym (very important for the fixed gear) and cruise on up to Page ave and make the right and head West again. There it is. A nice 15 mph wind with gusts up to 40 (I checked Noaa.gov after getting to work!) So I'm stuck with it now. Not much to do but suffer for the next 6 miles. Lots of things go through your head when you suffering like that. The thought I like to keep in my head most is that this ride is probably going to be my hardest ride of the year. I have several reasons for that. The first is the obvious - the head wind. The second is obvious to anyone who trains, then gets out of it for a while and tries to pick up where they left off. I hadn't riden the bike since about Octover - November. So getting back on the bike (or whatever type of training you doing is always tough) is alway impossibly tough. The only sport I did in high school was wrestling. So the first week of practice was always the hardest. After that your body knew what to expect. But for that first week it had no idea what you were doing to it. Thirdly , the 6:00 am start time always makes it a hard ride. Fourthly, the cold. It saps energy away from you. At least when it's that cold it does me. I think I've gotten used to it as of late, but it has taken a while. Fifthly, it's always good to think that the ride you are doing is going to be the hardest ride of the year, because it's only going to get easier!

I get into work with a bit of suffering and many times having asked myself why I did it, but I feel really good after getting there. It tool me longer than normal so when I got in several of the other guys were already there. I think I surprised quite a few of them. That's probably the funnest part of cummuting is the looks my coworkers give me when I have ridden in. I definitely think it's changed a lot of perspectives. I don't think anyone would ever have considered riding to work, but after seeing me do it, they think it would be possible. Not that any of them do, but at least theres the thought and that's enough to bring the commuting to a bit of accepted normalcy.

Why you ask?

So, I'm sure you are wondering why a 34 year old father of two would start a blog. I'm not real sure, but there are a few reasons why I'm crazy enough to start.

1) Need to tune my writing skills. I'm way out of practice.
2) Cure for my insomnia
3) Keep family up to date as to what's going on up north here in Michigan.
4) Once the weather gets nice, it would be cool to post descriptions of bike rides. That's the real reason I thought I'd try. There are a lot of really good routes around here and I'd like to try my hand at verbally describing them. Painting a picture of the area.
5) Practice for the book Ruth and I plan to write. Our idea is to ride Amtrak, get off where it looks nice, ride a few days, and get back on to go somewhere else. Of course this will have to be retirement, but the way I write, I better start learning how to write now.

So that's just a few reasons why I thought I'd start this. We'll see where it goes.

First try

Ok, so as you will see I've never done this before. Heck, I haven't thought about a journal or anything like that since I had to in High School for Mrs. Cash's english class! So, in an attempt to fight off the winter blues I thought I'd start this as a way to keep track of the things I do and plan on doing with the family this summer.