Sure and begorrah

This photo, of the leprechaun with a helmet instead of the traditional (and surely realistic) top hat, reminded me of my bike ride to work.

I've been taking a new route the last week. There's a bike lane symbol painted in the bike lane, with a person on a bike, wearing what appears to be a baker's hat.

I think that I should get out of that lane, because it is reserved for people delivering croissants via bike.

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A Day of Biking and Ignored Responsibilities

My day, in a nutshell:

1. Woke up a little late.
2. Made fig muffins.
3. Got on my bike.
4. Arrived at yoga a little late.
5. Got on my bike.
6. Arrived at the coffee shop.
7. Drank coffee, had a snack, read my book.
8. Got on my bike.
9. Arrived at Stacy's right on time.
10. Got on my bike.
11. Rode with Stacy and Keisha (stopped to gawk at the huge new Surly Brewery).
12. Got on my bike.
13. Arrived home.
14. Ate a big dinner.

I feel like I was on vacation, ignoring stuff that probably should be done. This was my first time out on my road bike in 2015, and I'm feeling optimistic about my back not hurting this year, considering I rode over 50 miles, half of which I did as fast as possible.

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This is the dawning of the age of... Aries?

This week, I witnessed some signs of spring: the song of the robin during my morning walk with the dog; high school kids waiting at the bus stop on a 40° day, wearing shorts; car windows cracked on a number of cars.

But then today, when doing laundry, I realized I have unique signs of spring in my life. There's a certain smell in the backyard, despite being diligent in cleaning up after the dog all winter. There's the bike grease in the cracks of my fingers and on the edges of my fingernails. There's the first commute in to work and finding the usually grungy shower in a particularly gross state. There's the great variability in daytime temps, requiring creativity and layers when commuting. And, most obvious to me today, there's the need to spray the armpits of my dirty biking shirts with OxyClean to get my stink out. Perhaps that is TMI. But it definitely means that biking season - spring, the time of much energy and the time of the Zodiac sign of Aries - is upon us!

As I kick off spring, I'm celebrating a most thoughtful and funny gift from my brother-in-law, who knows I love Mojos and that the Mountain Mix can no longer be found in MN. This frees me up a bit from having to maintain my recent level of hoarding.

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A joyful 180

On Saturday, I was riding with toe warmers in my boots. This afternoon? Shorts! Bare hands! No jacket! No hat!

There still is a lot of crud on the roads, so I took my fat tire wheels off my one bike, and put mountain bike wheels and a rack on it for commuting to work today.

The streets were filled with cyclists and, although I am out of shape, I can tell that the bit I rode this winter was helpful for transitioning into this spring riding. I hope the weather holds for the long haul (like, say, 35 years), but I left my fat tire wheels out, in easy reach, just in case.

Here's a video someone took during the fat bike Birkie we did last weekend. It didn't do a good enough job of showing the hills, but you get the general idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Dme8Fml-Q

On a side note, I'm making progress, but have a long way to go, still, toward reaching my fundraising goal. Maybe the weather will help with that, too!
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Winter in Wisconsin

Today, Dan, Tony, Angie, and I (in order of finish) rode in the fat tire Birkie: a fat tire race in the snow on the Birkebeiner ski trail near Hayward, Wisconsin. We did the 20k route, versus the 47k.

I learned some things, such as:

- I should have had oatmeal as planned, instead of what offered insufficient calories to make it to the 8k water station in strong, non-wobbly fashion.
- The trail is very hilly. I will never, ever, EVER! cross country ski on it.
- Airbnb has some nice offerings.
- Cable is a cute little town, with a good bookstore that gave me a free book by my new favorite author!
- The Angry Minnow brewpub (as opposed to my local Angry Catfish bike shop) has really good food.
- The Moccasin Bar has really weird dioramas of taxadermied animals.
- I am really out of shape.
- Wiping out on your bike in the snow is kind of funny the first time, but not the second time.

It was a good way to end the winter, but now I'm ready to pull out my road bike.

(I wish I had photos of the race. It was pretty amazing to see hundreds of fat bikes out in nature.)

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Metric or standard? (Not for the children)

After buying a new fat bike tire to pair up with a spare we had at home, I exchanged emails with the owner of the Angry Catfish bike shop about the shop's donation for our trivia night. I mentioned that I hoped the tire would provide more traction than my current tires, to which he responded, "that tire has a shit ton of traction." 

I explained to my coworkers that I didn't think of traction when I thought of shit. Desmond astutely asked whether shop owner meant a metric ton or a standard ton.

Interestingly, this is what I learned: 

• A standard ton is also called a short ton. This is the ton that those of us in the U.S. have always heard about - usually in the context of elephants or whales. The standard or short ton is 2,000 pounds. 
• In the U.K., a "ton" usually means a long ton. It is 2,240 pounds. It is also referred to as an Imperial ton.
• Alternatively, in the U.K., something might be a "tonne" - - a metric ton. It is 2,240.62262 pounds. This is the term, and poundage, usually used in Canada. (I'm not sure why there couldn't be some way to consolidate the two, non-short tons to simplify matters and/or deal with the 0.62262 extra pound.)

The lesson learned, I guess is that if someone offers you a "shit ton" of something good, you'd want to clarify that it is either a long/Imperial ton or a tonne/metric ton, to get an extra 240 or 240.62262 pounds of it. If you're in a "shit ton" of trouble, you'd want to clarify that you're using a standard/short ton.

I leave it to you as to which ton you use to categorize this post.

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Battle of the Hamstrings Versus the Quads

This weekend was glorious and relaxing: I did nothing on Friday night, I swam on Saturday and got some of the trivia donations from Stacy, Dan and I met fellow MS rider Dave and his wife Ellen for dinner on Saturday night, and then I went for an early morning bike ride today, then an Operation Om yoga (one of our trivia donors) class, followed by a fruitful - literally, I guess - excursion to Costco with member Stacy, and then a trip to 'Sconnie with Dan to Dave's Brewfarm (a wind powered farm/brewery).

I took these pictures on the trail, while riding home when the sun was making its debut. The one I took while standing makes me look tall and powerful. The one I took while riding is a nice action shot, but the leaves and sticks made it harder to see my shadow.

The 20k ride in Wisconsin is just 6 days away. Hopefully I can figure out my pants layers by then so that I can move my legs nicely and not have hot quads - like today - and yet somehow prevent repeating today's blocks-of-ice hamstring scenario.

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