Sore travel muscles and winter road maintenance

Either I'm getting old (er) or I just can't take 4 weeks off and hang with the big dogs - or both - at least in winter with limited base to fall back on. After weeks away in India and surrounded by bikes that did my fitness little good, it was nice to get back out an ride. Perfectly timed was the Thursday lawyers lunch ride, mild 50 degree weather and a pause in the rain. I knew it would be a special day when we took the detour around the first tunnel on Lovejoy and there was Frank and Tom struggling to clear a downed alder tree. Road maintenance - that's what I love about cycling in this part of the world - ya know, we could all ride in Arizona or Southern Cal, but what fun would that be.


Nothing like getting back in the saddle after 39 hours of commuting from half way around the planet - don't get me wrong, the India trip was great, and the bike culture research for the upcoming film was better than I ever hoped (more on that in future posts) but it was time to ride. I especially was served up a big dose of outta-shape when I naively tried to follow Ryan's wheel up the bottom of Thompson - the head kept telling burning lungs and legs that "we" could maintain, just hang, but POP! Damn, it's good to feel muscles ache again - now let's see how they respond in the Cheery Pie Road Race this weekend... I may be writing this from the ER on Saturday night!