Saturday 13 February 2010

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Good:
Had a great time riding today with Craig, Shawn and Dallas - left house at about 9:30, home just before 5. They're riding well, and Bunnin has a noticeably performing engine on him. The Blacksheep is a totally awesome bike to ride, and today seemed to be good conditions again for my tires (Schwalbe CX pros). I'm onto this Icebreaker merino wool stuff, one merino shirt and a cycling jacket that's not really too wintery by design did the job well today, I'm impressed. The warming and comfort of it I'm fully a believer in. I'm doing my own "smell test" on it this week just to be sure... they write that stuff in their marketing, but hey, lots is written and ain't true. So far so good. And I'm gearing up for a fun night and another "no drop" ride tomorrow, which I hope not to test too much!

Bad:
I'm a few weeks out of having a reference point with the rest of these mad winter riders, but either they're super blazing fast (likely) and/or I felt super crummy today. Shawn/Dallas/Craig can always scrub me off the back when they want, they're just built with more. Usually if: they intend to let me draft + I try hard to stay on = I stay on. Today I was off the back all day long, sheesh... I bet I even got dropped drinking coffee in Cochrane.

Ugly:
Grey fog Calgary day, wind, -8C, and on the way home mist froze to my glasses, the insides were fogging, the air was foggy so visibility was only a hundred meters anyway, and my left contact froze, got pushed out, and stuck to the side of my face. Rode home by brail essentially, Craig and I weren't seeing so well. Yes, I still seem to be able to draw on the right parts of the gene pool I'm built out of to be winter active in whatever weather... but considering Australia just a week ago... uhhh... you know... this just felt like grade A crap.

4 comments:

  1. "this just felt like grade A crap." Hey but what about our super fantastic route?

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  2. the route was good, I'd never linked that part up before from Big Hill Springs into Cochrane... and that township road up north is a keeper, somehow I thought we'd all been up there before, but regardless now I'm glad its in everyone's scope of riding terrain.

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  3. I was skiing in k-country today. Sunny, -2 at 10:30; +5 at 3 p.m. Same thing happened last weekend. The dividing line is Scott Lake hill. Hwy 40 is 95% dry but probably gravely along the shoulders.

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  4. am I the bad, or the ugly, I certainly can't be the good :)

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