Getting Stronger

24. December 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: cycling, daily life, storytelling

Every now and again, when I’m out on a ride, I come to a spot that once gave me a great deal of trouble and realize that the spot has now become “just part of the ride.”

In the past two days, there have been many of these moments. There’s the ever so slight rise to the top of the Rusty Bridge over East West Boulevard. Three years ago, I was huffing and puffing to get up that minor hill. There’s a similar rise to the bridge over MD100 that used to nearly kill me. The Naval Academy Bridge once looked like a mountain that I’d never be able to climb.

And then there’s the satisfaction that comes with overtaking and dropping another rider. I’m not usually competitive on my rides. I’m not usually one to gloat either, but I’m going to allow myself to do so today.

I was about 25 miles into my ride yesterday as, I approached the Rusty Bridge headed south on the B&A trail. I noticed cyclist on a Cervelo coming down East West Blvd. Since the trail is closed just south of the Rusty Bridge, he went up Light Street Ave before getting on the trail. I had to follow the same detour, which meant slowing down to get though some switchbacks, and that put me about 75 yards behind the rider when I re-entered the trail.

A number of thoughts went through my head:

Should I sprint to catch up with him?

You are 25 miles in on this ride. You are getting tired. You might not have the strength.

If you do catch up and don’t want to talk with him, what do you do? You’d look like an ass if you couldn’t keep up with him.

I started peddling like mad and shifted into a higher gear. I was gaining on him pretty quickly and then I made the decision.

I’m gonna drop him.

And I did. And it felt great.

To be fair, my feat may not have been much of a feat at all. I’ve got no idea whether he is a strong cyclist. I have no idea where he was on his ride. He may have been out for a short recovery ride. Perhaps he was just stretching his legs.

And yet, there is still a certain satisfaction about smoking a guy on a bike that easily cost three times as much as mine.

A Letter of Love

23. December 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: cycling, daily life, storytelling, twitter

You and I had an amazing day yesterday. I couldn’t have asked for a getter time than we had. When we left the house, and the boy, I wasn’t sure how things would go. I hadn’t gone for so long in quite some time.  As we settled into the rhythm and a steady pace, I began to relax.

The weather was just about perfect, with almost no wind, strangely warm temperatures, and some low December sunshine. I tweeted before we left that I was going to make some vitamin D. I’d forgotten just how low in the sky the sun is at this time of year. We’ve just entered the beginning of the lengthening of daylight for the year. We’re over the hump, rounding the bend.

As we crested the Naval Academy Bridge, you dropped the chain. I struggled with your derailleurs to right it without getting off, but that chain was stubborn. We had to stop for a mechanical. I worried that this might be a problem for the rest of the ride, but it turned out alright.

As we cruised into Annapolis, there was a fair amount of traffic which I hadn’t planned on. I debated the route. I’d thought we’d ride around the river through Crownsville when we left, but was second guessing that now. There would be more traffic than we wanted to deal with on MD450. So we took a short break at the City Dock.

Decisions made, we peddled off with the intention of heading back up the trail. Your gears gave us no trouble on the bridge, thankfully, and getting over the few short hills coming up to the trail was not a problem.

Riding up the trail, I found that I was suddenly smiling for no reason at all, and I knew it was because I was out in the open air with you. As we approached the usual turn off from the trail, I knew we weren’t ready to go home, and so we continued, with no planned route.

Something lead me to turn us toward Kinder Farm Park when we were on East West Boulevard. We’d never ridden through the park, but I knew that there was a nice paved bike trail. It was a little more crowded than I’d hoped, but we managed, and I’m sure we’ll ride there again some day.

By now, the sun was sinking low and I felt the need to get us home before long. We headed back down the B&A tail and took the right at Cedar lane. When we got home, I put you back in the shed without washing you. That was wrong, and I’m sorry.

Today, you’ll get a proper bath and some pampering.  You deserve it.

For those of you who commented, I’m sorry

15. November 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: daily life

So, I went about consolidating all my web content into this here blog a few weeks ago. The last thing to merge was my tumblr. A very bad idea. There is a bug with importing tumblr content into WordPress blogs that pretty much hoses up all stats and all comments on the blog.

I’ve spent a few days moving from a wordpress.com hosted site to a selfhosted wordpress installation. Things should be back to normal now.

Can I do 30 days of cycling?

05. October 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: cycling, daily life, exercise, fitness, good things, self, sidetracks, struggles

IMG_0851Last week, I’d made a commitment to myself that I would ride my bike every day in October. My first ride was yesterday, October 4th. Track record, 1 and 3.

If there’s one thing I’m good at, its being hard on myself. There are a number of good reasons why I didn’t get a ride in on before Tuesday, not the least of which was spending both Saturday and Sunday with Mr. Grey. I’ve also got this pesky thing called a job. Monday I had to go up to Philadelphia for a meeting, which wiped out the entire day. In fact, today is the first day this week that I haven’t had a 2 hour drive in the morning. Tomorrow is a different story.

I’ve tried to do 30 day challenges and even 365 projects in the past, and I almost always end up failing for some reason or another. In the past I’ve been hard on myself about it. That’s counter-productive at best.

Maybe my life just isn’t set up for doing something every day. Or maybe I need to be less stringent on things like start and stop dates. Sure, starting 30 days of cycling on the first of the month makes it clean and tidy, but my life isn’t clean and tidy. There will certainly be at least one or two more trips to Philly in the next month, and that will effectively eliminate the possibility of getting a ride in, but even if I don’t hit all 30 days, at least I’ll be out there more than once a week.

Here’s hoping.

Irene

28. August 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: daily life, good things, gratitude, health, hope, thoughts, weather

She was like most others, a little sexy, a little crazy and a whole lot of unpredictable. Irene could have been a real big mess for us. We were lucky, no trees fell on our house, no massive floods (though we live on high ground) and only the inconvenience of a power outage. And let me tell you it is an inconvenience at worst.

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