Well it has been about a week or so since I have made a post but I must say that I have been busy.  This weekend I went to Bar Harbor to see some friends and to ride.  I got about 120 miles in on the 3 days.  It was really a nice weeekend to ride.  Temps were in the mid 50’s.  It was quite a nice weekend.

Came home, and headed out the next day for another 18 miles.  Then the cold windy weather hit again.  There is nothing like New England in March and April.  The weather is so unpredictable.  As soon as some of this wind calms down, I’ll be back on the bike.  I am hoping to ride again on Saturday and possible do the Kanc to get a good feel of what the hill is like for the Crank the Kanc Race I signed up for.

I figured out why the couch is winning our little battle.  Its my recover week.  Yea, thats the ticket.  I put in a good amount of work last week, so this week is recovery.  One of the major issues that I didn’t ride is because my bike is fithly.  it really needs a good cleaning.  Yea, thats the ticket too.  Can’t ride a dirty bike.  Yea thats the ticket.  So last night I took an hour or so and completely cleaned the bike up.  I must say it looks nice now.

Its 55 degrees out right now, and I would love to ride today, but my schedule is just to busy.  I need to get home, pack some stuff up, clean Kelly’s bike up, and I am going to see the movie 300 tonight.  I heard its wicked good.

Tomorrow morning Kelly and I are heading up to Bar Harbor for a little weekend getaway.  She wants to visit all of her friends from the school she worked at, and I just want to ride all day.   It is supposed to be nice in Bar Harbor this weekend so I am hoping to get atleast 75 miles each day.  The nice thing about the rides there, is that Kelly will be able to ride the first 15-20 miles with us, which we will use as a warm up then head off for another 50-70 miles.  If the weather is nice, it is going to be one heck of a weekend.

Again, nothing much was done this evening.  The day looked so nice as I sat inside looking out.  The sun was shining, snow was melting, it looked great.  Then I walked outside.  Windy, cold awful.  There is just no need for this cold anymore.  So instead of riding, I went out to eat at the local brew pub, The Moat, after all it was buy one get one free nacho and pizza night.  Either way, I didn’t get to ride the bike again.  I need to do something about that.

Today however, I did get myself a new pony……The Vassago Jaberwocky.  It looks like quite the steed worthy of my riding skills.  I am excited to build it up, but I still need a few things to get it 100%.  As soon as the fork comes in, I will be ready to roll.  Ohh yea, that and the foot of snow on the ground to melt.  When I get this sucker built up, I will take some pics and get them posted.

It is still to cold and I have lost all motivation to be on the couch.  One would think that since I just signed up for the Crank the Kanc race I would want to be out there a little more or at least get on my trainer.  Well, it seems that I’m just not that motivated.  I come home and sit on the couch and that is where I get stuck.  Couch 1 Mike 0.

Well first I must say that I am glad we didn’t get the amount of snow we were supposed to.  I think we got around a foot, give or take an inch.  Nothing too special.  Either way, I still had to shovel the driveway.  Leave it up to Kelly to come up some some good motivation.  As you can tell  from the picture, she put a beer about every 5 feet down the driveway.  When I shovel my way to it, I can have it and the best part is that she even helped me shovel.  I think we got the whole thing done in about an hour or so which was pretty quick being this snow was super heavy.  It must have rained or something once the snow was down because again, it was super heavy and there was a crust on top of everything.  Either way, you give me a shovel and place a beer every 5 feet. I will dig anything you want.

Other than that, nothing much to report.  I think I might pick back up the running again as I don’t think riding will be good this week.  As much as I don’t like to run, sitting on the couch is not helping my weight loss.  I have about 3 1/2 weeks until my “new years resolution” is up and I am way behind on my weight loss plan.  I think this week it is time to shift it into high gear and get going on it and running just might be the way to do it.

Winter you say…yes winter.  But Mike, you said it was 62 degrees yesterday.  Well it was.  WAS.  Today we are scheduled to get somewhere between 15-24 inches of snow.  What is going on here?  The temps go from negative temps to 60 degrees in 2 days then back to 2 feet snow.  Someone told me…hey it’s new england.  Well I have lived in new england for long enough to know something is fishy here.  It doesn’t have this much of a swing in March.  Stupid snow…

Today the weather wasn’t all that great plus my back didn’t feel so hot because of me not taking my medications, so I decided not to ride this evening.  It seemed like a good thing to do, take a day off that is.  So instead of riding my bike, I took pictures of them and everything else I plan to sell on ebay.  Then I sat down for about 2 hours or so and listed everything that I wanted to.  For some reasons, some of them aren’t coming up in searches right now, but that could be because I revised them.  So when I wake up tomorrow, I will check in on them and hope they all work fine.  But if anyone is interested in anything for their bikes, I have just about everything and anything you want for bikes.  I have hard tail frames, full suspension frames, forks, shifters, brakes, cranks, derailleurs, and much more.  So feel free to go check out my store over on ebay and buy some stuff.  And if really need be, I will end some auctions early if people want.  I am just trying to clean up my bike space in my basement so can I put some of the new stuff in there.  So go buy something.

Today was the 5th day in a row that I actually got to ride outside.  It was nice.  Yesterday I did about 16 miles and today I did roughly 22.  So far the mileage isn’t piling up like I would like it to, but since I only get to ride from 530ish pm on, thats all the sunlight I have.  I must say that today was odd for outdoor activities. Today started off with some snowboarding followed by biking.  It felt very odd to be putting on all my ski stuff when it is 60 degrees.  The slopes were crap, as most of it was melting.  There is nothing like boarding in slush.  When we got back to the office, the boss said to finish up the project I was on and get out of there early to ride.  And that is exactly what I did.

This weekend is supposed to be cold again with some possibilities of snow.  When is this crap going to end and turn warm, melt all the snow, dry out the ground and let me ride the mountain bike a little??

Distance- 48.12 miles

Thats right, I got 48 miles in these past 3 days and all of them were outside. And it was fantastic. First on Saturday, I did my normal loop just to spin the legs a little, then on Sunday I road with a group of guys who call themselves Team Weak and Feeble. It was great to meet up with some guys, who like me, will ride anytime, anywhere, any conditions and do some big miles. We started around 6am in complete darkness. When they rounded the corner to meet me, I knew I was in trouble because they were all on their mountain bikes with head lamps and I was on my road bike with no lights. As we left on the ride, the pavement covered with black ice quickly turned to gravel roads covered with snow and ice. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have used my road bike. But what do I know….I’m still a “newbie” to riding in this area with people. Lesson learned. With all the awful conditions, I enjoyed myself throughly. We did manage to get about 10 miles in and hopefully I didn’t slow anyone down being my tires sunk in all the loose gravel. Today I got to ride with my finance after we both got off work. I do really enjoy riding with her. With her, we generally go at a slower pace and its nice for me. For those rides, I don’t have to kill myself on the ride and push myself to the brink of exhaustion. I get to just pedal my bike and really get to enjoy myself. Rides like this is the reason I started riding a bike in the first place. That plus it being 53 degrees when we left certainly doesn’t hurt.

Wow, what a workout.  I remember going to the gym in high school and not being this sore right afterwards.  Basically my session is a little over an hour long.  We begin with stretching for about 10 minutes to loosen up my hip flexor muscles and then we get right into it.  The therapist has believes that my core muscles are extremely weak so we do about 50 minutes of ab workouts.  When all is said and done, I think I have weak core muscles.  I thought I was in decent strenght until I got on one of those exercise balls with “spiffy” weight belts strapped to my ankles and wrists.  I must say, it must be a heck of an image of me bouncing around on that ball with weights on me.  Either way, I can only assume that this will help me tons on the bike and after all, isn’t that what it is all about??

This weekend is supposed to be nice so I will try and get out on the bike some.  I know as of now I am scheduled to meet up with some folks to do a Sunday morning 6am ride.  I might try and get out Saturday for a little just to spin the legs, but who knows.