Get Lost

Wow, what a week of saddle time. Not sure I have ever had this much weekly saddle time in January in all my years of riding. I ended the week with just over 13 hours of riding. Well, to be honest 4:25 of that was done inside but still, for a slacker like me that is pretty darn impressive. For real "competitive" cyclists, it's not much, but to ME it takes some doing.

Yesterday's ride was awesome and gave me some idea on how to add some pavement to my rides. As you well know I'm not a huge fan road riding but when the dirt roads are in the crap condition they're in now I don't mind so much. So today I took full advantage of sunny skies and moderately chilly temps to explore. I sort of got more than I bargained for.

It started out well enough, I hit some nice roads, with some nice wide shoulders that let me just sort of open things up for a while and spin the shit out of my legs. There were just enough rollers to make it interesting and keep the heart rate up, but not too high. Perfect for a recovery ride of sorts.

I really had no idea where I was going, I just kept going, figuring that I could turn around anytime I got lost. Well, a forgotten turn here and there and a lousy sense of direction had me several miles north west of town and not sure which way to go! Ha!

First I flagged down a walker who was out on North Whiteville Rd., which for the record is VERY much NOT the South Whiteville Rd. that I often ride. She told me where to go, but it didn't make much sense (I'm sort of a dim bulb). It was also about this time that I lost my tail wind and had a VERY chilly, ice cream headache inducing head and cross wind coming at me off some snow and ice covered dirt roads. Brrrrrrr - grrrrrrrrr!!!

"Can I get some glazed ice with that ride please?"

Finally I came to Winn Rd. "Hey, I know where that is" I thought. But which way? Hmm..... Rather than risk getting even further away I used my cell to call Wifey to look up some directions. No answer. So I called my friend Mike. He pointed me in the right direction, but to be honest I was just ready to guess and go the direction where the road was clear of snow. Then as it by some sort of weird fate, I stuffed the phone in my jacket, turned around and there was a car at the intersection across the road with a road bike on the back. He looked at me, waved and pointed the direction I was to go, then gave me thumbs up as if to say "got it?" I returned the thumbs up and continued on. THAT was freaky.

I was very thankful that I took a bar along (not sure why I did, I guess I know my pension for getting lost) with me 'cause I was feeling the effects of the cold, the unplanned detour and the beginnings of what might be a bonk. Finally I met back up with Baseline Rd. and pedaled back in the direction I THOUGHT was correct. A few miles passed by, a few farms passed by and I started to doubt if I was heading the right way. Then I saw my tire tracks on the opposite shoulder's thin layer of snow and knew I was heading the right way. Whooosh!

Finally I was heading back into town and back to my crib. Damn, it felt good to get home. I hoped for 30 mile or so spin, I ended up with 53.5 miles on the day and over 130 miles in the past 3 days. YIKES! A long hot shower, a pizza ordered and couch time with Jake The Dog was on tap for a few hours before I got the energy to come get my blog on. After 7 days straight of "doing stuff" I might take a full day off tomorrow or just do an easy indoor spin and listen to some newly acquired tunes.

BTW, me thinks I need a GPS! Ha!

Later.