Muddy Water

Mary, take the child, the river's rising
Muddy water taking back my home
The road is gone, there's just one way to leave here
Turn my back on what I've left below
Shifting land, broken farms around me
Muddy water's changing all I know

- Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

Today was monumental in more ways than one. I rode without arm warmers and even without leg warmers (albeit briefly). That's HUGE for me. I have knobbly old man knees, they turn purple when it drops below 70°. They begin to creak audibly when it gets below 65°. And they become progressively more riddled with veins and then explode like that dude's head in Scanners when it gets below 62°. I also rode without a 16 pound pack. I'm still fat, but I felt like Alberto Contador on the climbs.

Another reason for the monu-mentalness was the fact that I rode with my friend Jane. Jane is a person, who is not me, which means I actually rode with someone else. While I don't mind riding by myself almost all the time, it's nice to ride with other people sometimes. Well, I imagine it would be nice to ride with other people all the time. If only everyone else would adopt my strange schedule that might happen. Or maybe I could adopt their normal schedule. Nah, that's crazy talk. I hate crazy talk. Nothing makes me crazier than crazy talk.



Jane showed me a few new tricks on the roads that are pretty much in my backyard. Trail riding was out today, the waters are still way too high. I saw some incredible floods out in Carlisle, Concord, and Acton. There were ponds, lakes, and rivers where there shouldn't be. Unless you're an evil duck, plotting to take over the world. In that case the the out of place water is right where it should be. If you ask them, the next step is to flood people's living rooms and workplaces. If all goes according to evil plan, evil ducks will be paddling around our couches by July.

If they ally themselves with the Evil Beavers, we're really screwed.

Today was the first time this year that I've ventured out to one of my favorite spots — Nagog Hill. Which means I have not done a three-plus-hour road ride. Lets' just say that I'm taking a relaxed attitude toward training this year. We'll see how that pans out. Mental freshness baby...mental freshness. If I were Joe Friel I might talk about "optimum arousal," but every time I hear that term it causes "optimum skeez-out."



Two things I learned today (hold onto your hats cuz this is real heavy stuff):

1.) Fig Newmans are delicious

and

2.) Setting your ipod to "Shuffle Songs"can cause mild brain injury

Let me explain. Fig Newmans are delicious, they may be the only reason to ride a bike for such a period of time that the eating of snacks is warranted. I'd never tried them before, I don't know how I missed that day at Bike College.

I've been loading my ipod with very well thought out playlists for the past few weeks for all the commuting. After Jane peeled off, I threw the earphones in and shuffled it up. This went well for a long while, it went well until a violent and disturbing segue occurred at just the wrong moment. I was cranking up to the bottom of a climb, spinning my legs at a cadence that was right in sync with The Butthole Surfers, when, suddenly, the song ended, and I was left with the dull, barely audible drone of an interview with author Tim O'Brien (hey, it's the type of thing I listen to while spinning up the Minuteman Bike path in the morning as I sip my coffee on the way to school). I think I had a small aneurysm as a result.

And I leave you with some photos of our banged up bike path.
There was a little boy splashing around in that "new stream" next to the path yesterday. If I were his age, I would have been doing the same thing. Being a demi-adult and having use of most of a working brain, I just thought to myself: "Eww! Kid go home, take some Penicillin and scrub yourself with hydrogen peroxide and a freakin' Brillo pad — NOW!"

Priorities Straight
(But Not Narrow)

This week I decided to get on my bike in a serious way. My plan was to ride to school (2 hour round-trip) every day. I woke up Monday ready to get right on track. I was running late (I'll tell you why in a minute) I ran out the door, then it happened (I just like using that phrase, it makes whatever I'm about to say sound really exciting, even though it rarely is), I got up to the light at the end of my block, went to take my foot out of my pedal, and...nothing. Well something--my foot pivoted outward without releasing. I eventually managed to wrestle my foot out of the pedal and found that one of my cleat bolts had fallen out. Although I generally loctite my cleat bolts, I'd recently been making some cleat-position changes, it was only a matter of time before I got bit in the ass by my tinkering and fidgeting.

I sped back up the house, scrambled for a bolt in what I often think of as my "box of wonders," (the tool box I bring to races, that always seems to have whatever I, or anyone else happens to need inside, however unlikely.), but no luck. I scoured my work benches and bins and drawers...nothing. I grabbed my old pair of shoes, but the bolt heads were ground down to flats, they weren't coming out without a Dremel and more time than I had available. I was already running so late that it didn't seem like a total cop out to hop in the car and drive to school. So I tore off my clothes (sorry no photos), threw them in a pile, and dug out my car keys.

Of course I hadn't started the car since before M and I left for Mexico. It didn't start. I mean it really didn't start. It's an automatic, there was no clutch-popping potential and calling AAA was still not going to get me to class on time. So back in the house I went. Luckily I remembered that I had another pair of old shoes in the basement, and with some effort I was able to remove a cleat from one of them and install it on my shoe. My normal-person-clothes were thrown in a heap and the heap that was my cycling clothes was replaced onto my body. Then I realized that with all the contortions I'd gone through, there was no way that I'd be able to make it to class anywhere near on time...so I relaxed and had another cup of coffee and read some blogs for a while in my lycra and wool and Goretex.

You wanna know why I was running late? That's OK, I'm going to tell you anyway.

I was running late because I had to fill my ipod. Had to.

Not only did I have to fill it, but I had to fill it with songs of the correct duration and tempo to fit my very dogmatic workout plan. So I laid down some Juana Molina for warm up, then took it up notches gradually from (if you're an audio elitist you might want to cover your eyes now or you will surely be vomiting on your vintage vinyl collection momentarily) Bronski Beat (if you click on one link, this would be it), and Talking Heads. Then I cranked the knob a little further up to C for "The Cult" and D for "Danzig." (OK, if you're going to click on two links, this would be the second one, but if you're not a Danzig fan or a fan of hating Danzig it will be bemusing not amusing). I followed that with some Judas Priest ("Turbo Lover"), Sabbath, The Jesus Lizard, Kyuss, and then cooled it back down with some mellow Zeppelin, and some The Smiths.

That sounded awkward, "and some THE Smiths."

Of course that was just the ride to school, I needed a return mix (remember, this was the essential crap I had to do that caused me to run late. And they wonder why I'm never on time to the work). I warmed it back up, re-heated it, with some Laura Veirs, The Pixies, and The Velvet Underground. Then The Nuge (wicked old school with The Amboy Dukes) stoked the coals, along with Devo, The Dirtbombs, Run D.M.C., The Clash, Van Halen, The Avengers, Soulside, Turbonegro, and finally I turned the ipod all the way up to...however far up it goes when you swirl your finger in a very manly fashion around that dial thing until it virtually bottoms out, with some Amon Amarth (it's what Odin would listen to) and Ministry. And then cooled it all the way back down some chill Guided By Voices tunes and some who else? Gram Parsons.

And...I just spent all the time I'd allotted for writing a brilliant conclusion looking up videos to link to on The You-tubes. But man it was fun.