Yesterday afternoon, I spun the cranks on the road bike and collected some paved mileage. I have a fantastic little route which begins at my doorstep, follows Dover road down to Butler road and then doubles back for a nice
20 mile loop. It was 4:00 by the time I had finished mowing the lawn and after some quick maintenance the road bike and I were headed for the hills. For the past several rides I've noticed some chain rub on the cage of my front derailleur. I kept forgetting to adjust it until I'd remember in the middle of a ride. So, before I left, I clamped the road bike in the stand and fine tuned the front derailleur. Somehow, the derailleur had shifted just a bit around my seat tube. I repositioned the clamp, snugged it up, checked my cable tension and high & low limits, then ran it through the gears.
Voila! Problem solved.
Temps were in the low 50's and the wind was kickin' so I kitted up in bib-shorts, short sleeve jersey, and wind vest. Less than a mile into the ride I stopped and pulled on a pair of arm warmers.
Arm warmers have to be my all-time favorite pieces of riding gear; closely followed by shoe covers with bib-shorts bringing up the rear. The warmers were just the ticket and kept me comfy for the entire ride.
I stopped a few times to take some pictures. My first stop, on Dover road, was to look snap a picture of a farm I admire. It's nestled down in a hollow with a little pond and a bunch of cows peppered around it's fields. The cows were incredibly interested in me and they mozied their way over to the fence slowly but surely. It was a little strange. I didn't know cows would walk right up to you like a horse would. I snapped a few pictures and was on my way, but here's the weird part... as I pedaled off, the cows began galloping along side me on their side of the fence... what's up with that? I'm just a likeable person I suppose. I shook my head and zipped off down the road. Fare well my bovine lady friends!
My next stop was further down Dover Road where a gate blocked the entrance to some Baltimore Gas & Electric property. The sign on the gate warning people not to trespass had, of course, been shot by the local rednecks. Classic! A nice shot pattern covered the center of the sign which was obviously shot from the window of a truck on the road, 20 feet away. “Good one Vern!” Rednecks truly must hate signs. Or do they love them? I don't know.
The other day I decided I'd wash all of my bikes. Living in the city without access to a hose has deprived me the luxury of scrubbing and hosing off bikes in the front yard. I washed all five and them and lined them up for portraits. I've been wanting to do that for years. I even added a new page to my blog which details the bikes and their set ups. You can see them all by clicking the my bikes link at the top of this blog.
Yesterday afternoon, I spun the cranks on the road bike and collected some paved mileage. I have a fantastic little route which begins at my doorstep, follows Dover road down to Butler road and then doubles back for a nice 20 mile loop. It was 4:00 by the time I had finished mowing the lawn and after some quick maintenance the road bike and I were headed for the hills. For the past several rides I've noticed some chain rub on the cage of my front derailleur. I kept forgetting to adjust it until I'd remember in the middle of a ride. So, before I left, I clamped the road bike in the stand and fine tuned the front derailleur. Somehow, the derailleur had shifted just a bit around my seat tube. I repositioned the clamp, snugged it up, checked my cable tension and high & low limits, then ran it through the gears. Voila! Problem solved.
Driving through dense fog this morning around 7:45, I was forced to pull over at the old church & cemetery on the corner of Butler & Dover roads. Heavy fog floating around the head stones and blossoming apple trees, in the adjacent field looked just too good to pass up with my camera sitting on the seat next to me. So I pulled over and took a wet walk around. Originally, my intentions were to photograph some eery tombstones, but those plans were quickly dashed when I caught site of numerous spider webs glistening with morning dew. The rising sun reflecting through the dew droplets made them pop against the landscape and so I took my time crouching down and snapping photos. In each of the little webbed dwellings was a small spider, one of which is visible in a photo below. It felt great to capture the scene and I drove off with wet sneakers and a grin on my face. I'll get a quick road ride in this morning before headed down to DC for the cherry blossom festival. 
From a purely physical standpoint, I am feeling fantastic these days. I believe I've finally gained some semblance of one who is in-shape. My body is nowhere near race-shape, but it's at least in-shape. I'm slowly building a base mileage on which I can soon start tossing some sprint & interval training. My slow-twich muscles are growing stronger and stronger and soon I'll get those fast-twichers up to speed! I realized all of this today while riding at Hashawha. A hill that usually has my dogs barkin' (quads burning!) felt like nothing at all today. I zipped up it and really enjoyed chug-a-lugging up its grade. I'm setting my sights on a couple of mountain bike races this summer and thoughts of rejoining my old racing team enter my mind more and more frequently the more I run and ride. Hell, yesterday I ran 4 miles and felt fine afterwords. My friend Damien is racing this April 1st at the 4th annual Dragon's Tail Race and I'm incredibly jealous. That's a pretty brutal race... 40 miles of hurt/joy, depending on how you look at it. I see a 50/50 blend. I wish him luck!
Today I drove out to Germantown, MD and met my friend Damien for a mountain ride at Schaeffer Farms. Schaeffer is awesome in general, but today's ride pushed past the confines of awesomeness and dare I say, bordered on the realm of epic. Though not fully worthy of the wearing the Epic robe, today's ride had nearly all the makings necessary for the aforementioned garment. The only ingredients lacking would be: distance and technical adversity. However, we did crank out 21.07 miles of nothing but singletrack.
