a.m.

it had to happen, first one in two years, oddly i didn't swear, only an oh shit as i went down and picked myself up. usually the commute is a bit cleaner, i felt fast today but i knew that the dusting overnight would only cover the black ice from the sunny afternoon yesterday. little bit of road rash and a bruise but not too bad. more of drop than a slide across the ground. where i came off was tarmac, not ice, so i sort of stopped my momentum with my hip, calf and foot. today i'll go look for better ice skills out in the valley where i just need to deal with snow machines and nicotine.

spring?

the first day of spring went past without much notice, better weather and it could have been a real holiday, the way it is in places that see spring earlier than may. rolling to work today had a better feel, the run this afternoon felt better than i thought it would. i see the light at the end of the tunnel, koppenberg will hurt a lot but it must be better than the cold snowy riding i have done the last week and a half.
i have been reading about scientology a lot lately and just can't get over the fact that beck is a scientologist, since i heard that i haven't been able to listen to his music. i started listening to him back in '93 or '94 with mellow gold, now i skip over the selection on the ipod without hesitating. it sucks, his music always made me smile and think, now it's wasted disk space.

link dump:
operation clambake

lies lies lies

more

evening

did the work on the rollers to keep the ghosts away for a night. haunting, the bike draws me out on the rollers or the snowy roads. not too easy to get out the door easier to sweat it out on the rolling drums. when it's only -8 C much better sweating inside watching the k's roll away.

less is more

a really good day today, i didn't leave the house once, except to wash the bike on the porch and take the trash out, i'll get on the rollers in a while. not a bad way to spend a day. i enjoy being a shut in, it works out.

results

i found out a lot about winter riding yesterday, i like the idea of going out my door instead of sitting in the car for an hour to drop 1500 meters and ride in perpetual spring. it was much better doing 2 hours at home at 2700 meters + than 3-4 hours at 1600 meters. way better. here is the result:


good work, not much hard pace, wished it could have been more of a coffee ride, but had to keep moving to avoid the chill. the beavers were hiding, probably due to the snow machines.

sunday

got out in the nice part of the day yesterday, dry roads until we hit the dirt road that was more of a mud and snowpacked affair. good stuff. riding with jeff who was geared made the work a bit more intense. riding out the valley was good, plenty of rednecks in the middle of the road on snow machines, heckling the guys on bicycles. i love the smell of white trash, fossil fuels and nicotine.

number1

i don't really have any odd fears, i try to avoid one if i feel it coming up. i don't dislike spiders, but most people have a knee-jerk reaction to kill whatever creepy-crawly comes across their path. poop or other such bodily excrements don't bother me that much either, what the hell it's just a by-product of life.