Local Color

I confess to being a closet basketcase, aren't we all? I'm not exactly cranky when I shove the earbuds in but rave music at 5am will never work for me. Rap will though, go figure. Particularly basketcase rap which is why Eminem is on heavy rotation at the moment I guess. I dial it in and spin.

At first listen I hated this album - it sounded like a bunch of whining to me but all it's done is grow on me with repeated listening. I like more and more of the songs, eg 25 to Life. Whatev, check it out.

I'm out of the saddle on the spinner hammering the pedals wishing it was this easy on a real bike and wondering if I'm ready for this forty miler this Saturday, secretly admitting I'm not.

Sigh. I'm gonna do it anyway.

I've given up on the century this year.

So I'm following my wife's training methodology since she's convinced she knows what she's talking about and I'm reasonably certain she can't injure me. According to her methodology, I'm suppose to ride ten miles a day until Friday, take Friday off and then I'm all set.

You wanna get graphic? We can go the scenic route...

How does he do that? My head spins back while I'm watching ponyTail getting ready to do her thing, looks like a lifting day in ponyVille while sweat pours into my eyes, stinging, clouding my glasses with salt. Nothing but cardio for me, and I'm thinking about the crappy bike ride I had on Sunday.

I should have heeded the omens but nooooooo, dead bike computer, can't find my water bottle, it's mid-afternoon and gale force winds. Sick of it, I bail into this posh neighborhood where I come across my first 'hipster.' Just so you can recognize one a hipster looks like this...

Well OK maybe not exactly like that, first of all it appears that she has some sort of brake cable running down her bike. Hipsters only ride fixies and shun brakes pretty much automatically kicking me out of that club since I want to live.

Second of all this was a dude on a bright orange bicycle. He sort of looked like this.

Only dorkier. He's ambling up some hill and I'm silently swearing for the 7,000th time that I've got to remember my camera because I know you all don't believe I actually see these things. I do.

I pull up next to him and ask, "Are you lost?"

"Huh?"

"Well you're way west of Greenwich Village."

"What?"

I turn right and drop him but I'm thinking, really?! REALLY?! You're trying to pull off that look in Columbus O-H-I-O on a Sunday afternoon? sheesh

Seven and a half miles of suck. Bad ride, bad omens.

Fork was in the road took the psychopath

I blink the sweat out of my eyes and I'm back on the spinner. Time to go.