Pushing lead

I bolted out of work like a shot last night at 4 bells straight up. The bike was all ready in the truck and I was dressed for riding. I guess you could say I was a bit anxious to actually ride my bike and make forward progress. I guess hours on a trainer does that to a guy.

I met up with Squirrel, Conlan, and Gov'ner to get the show on the road. We got moving somewhere around a quarter to 5 and headed off towards the WDM trail system. No real plan was laid on where we were going or how we'd loop back, we all just wanted the same thing: time on the bike outside. As I'd actually ridden the trails most recently, I proposed we head off towards the Windsor Heights trail system and on towards Douglas.

As luck or timing would have it, we met up with Fuller and Kent just as they were attempting to figure out where we were.
(Photo stolen from Squirrel)


They'd just ridden through the icy death trap further up the trail (and the direction we were headed). Fuller was obviously traumatized from this experience and opted to take surface streets around to the other side of the ice rink we were about to encounter. I can't say as I blame him one little bit and might even have joined him with the exception that I was riding studs and would forever have been labelled a wuss of epic proportions... The only mishap came as Gov'ner wiped out on a sheet of ice a bit further up the trail. A quick pee break just after crossing I-80 led to a break up in the group when our fearless leader failed to realize that a few guys were taking a bit more time with their urine slinging. As we rolled south on 128th, it was down to Squirrel and I as Fuller bailed towards home and Kent had bid adieu before that. Conlan and Gov didn't see us make the turn and decided to tour through some of the more grandiose neighborhoods just north of Hickman.

Unfortunately, we didn't realize this was their plan until we'd all ready climbed the grade from Hickman south towards University. A quick call and we headed back down the hill to pick up the other two guys before heading back up again. It was time to stretch my legs a bit going up the hill and I just held a nice strong gear and pushed up. I was winded as we crested the top, but not dying by any means and actually felt better the 2nd time up the hill. Maybe this training stuff actually works?! Who knew?

After that it was turn tail and set sail towards home with a nice cross tail wind out of the northwest most of the way. We struck back on the black label as soon as we could and pulled it clear down to Valley Junction. Squirrel peeled off leaving the 3 of us heading back to Conlan's. We hit the hill climb back up to Polk Blvd and I held the pedal to the metal again and grunted my way up to the top. Considering I'm hauling a metric shitload of extra weight with the heavy studded knobbies that roll slow plus tubes over my summer setup on the bike, damn that was a good grunt.

A killed off the night with a big ole bowl of homemade chili, a well earned beer, and even a nice soak in the hot tub for a bit. Of course all that lead to a later than anticipated bed time and me opting out of the call of the gym this morning. I guess you can't win them all!