Now THAT Was A Ride

January continues to rock some great weather here in Michigan. By "great" I of course mean it's not snowing that much and the temps are hovering between 32 and 45 instead of -10 and 30 with snow blowing out of every orifice Jack Frost has. Until the deep snow comes, rides will happen and today was a damn fine one.


I hooked up with my friend Mike for a 3 hour road ride on cross bikes that was a road ride pretty much in name only. In reality it was a sweet Ultra CX type ride: pavement, muddy dirt roads, ice covered dirt roads, abandoned roads, a short hike-a-bike, some doubletrack and even a small section of singletrack. It had it all!


Mike has lived in Mt. P. a long time, so I let him pick the route and he came up with a damn fine one. Out of town we went and onto some dirt roads, then some nice paved roads. Then onto a muddy doubletrack ATV type trail that would lead us to more pavement and a quick detour through Deerfield Park on wide trails to M-20.

Many of the dirt roads SOMEHOW continue to be covered in thick layer of snow packed ice. No pictures of them today, since I was too busy holding on for dear life and trying to unclench my anus that was puckered up like I just had a lemon juice enema (2nd enema reference this week if you're keeping score at home).

For the life of me I can't understand how some of the roads are snow and ice packed?? We haven't had more than and inch or two of snow here! I guess the folks out on those roads get it shipped in from somewhere else and dumped on their roads to keep stupid cyclists like me on their toes.

The first hour or so we enjoyed some nice sunshine, then the sun sort of went away and the clouds rolled in. It made for some chilly riding, sort of like riding in an open meat locker with an industrial sized fan blowing on you. The best thing about a strong headwind is that sooner or later you get a strong tailwind that makes riding along at 23 mph an easy spin. I just wish there would have been more of it.

We hit some nice hills and rollers and I think I had my heart rate up higher than its been since the race season ended. Even the smaller hills on the dirt roads felt hard with the head wind, soft dirt and occasional stretches of ice. All of that helped me to burn off 2,000+ calories and that surely helped burn some of the 10 pieces of Hungry Howie's Pizza I ate last night (review of that to come, ha!).

Not sure how much longer Ma Nature will let us suckle at here teet of moderate winter temps, but I plan to keep suckling as long as I can, for sooner or later Mr. Frost is gonna blow out his pipes on us and I fear that it's gonna suck ass.

5 hours of outdoor riding in two days... in JANUARY. Hope I can get out for more tomorrow.

Later.

P.S. An alternate title for this post could have been "Mike's Back," or "Photos of Mike's Ass." NOT to be confused with the former posts "The Back of D-Pow" or "D-POW's Ass."