patentcad

Or in this case, a morning where I felt like absolute dog meat. Don't ask me why. We all have those days.

Have you ever felt: 'there's no way I feel I can ride 30mph today but what the hell, I'll try'. That's how I felt this morning prior to the Nyack ride (the local racer fast Sunday ride). It was <30º, windy, and there was a light dusting of snow from last night (plus all the floatsam and jetsam from the 10" snowfall on Friday night). So conditions were far from ideal. Too many patches of frozen snow on the road. Miraculously they were all skillfully pointed out and avoided by the 20-30mph paceline. That's one of the great things about that ride, the paceline competence level is as good as it generally gets.

Maybe my training is coming around, but I hung on today. And there were a couple of times when I thought I might get ejected if the gas got turned up any farther, but that never happened. A young Cat 2 guy from the Army (as in West Point) cycling squad and a Nyack regular got away clean today, the sprint was going to be for 3rd place, I considered the dicey road/snow conditions and the testosterone filled jockeying for position and bailed 2 miles early as the ride passed my parked car. But @ that point I felt fairly dialed in, no danger of getting shelled. In retrospect I should have ridden and contested the sprint, but I wasn't really enjoying it today, and I was glad to have survived at all. The weather conditions did truly suck, the nice heated Piermont bike shop felt GREAT today when I walked in after the ride (I leave my shoes/car keys there, use their bathroom).

I guess my point is that when you start a race or hard ride feeling as if you won't last 10 miles and you wind up hanging in there for 30, that's not a bad day on the bike. Smaller group today, but that actually makes it harder, mostly hard core guys (harder core than me, that's easy) and we still dropped at least 5 guys out of 25 or so enroute.

All things considered I'd rather die by hitting frozen snow @ 30mph on my bike or by having my heart detonate mid-ride thanks to some overzealous Cat 2 youngster trying to kill me than @ home in the easy chair. I'm sure other middle aged fart riders here agree. God help me boys, I do love it. You'd have to to go on a ride like that (which is a 40 min. drive from here to boot) in conditions like this feeling like I did @ 8AM : ).

Get a life? Frankly, I LOVE my life just the way it is. F that Euro vacation crap KP. Race your bike! You can go to Europe after they draft you into the Army anyway!