Same Ol' Same Ol'

WOO HOOO!

The past two weeks, although not very productive, left me with some fun, memorable rides. Over the weekend the temperature got down into the teens and, as you can see, affected my face during the ride. The first time it happened it was just little beads of ice stuck in my beard. The second time I had near stalactites forming off my chin. I laughed pretty hard when I first saw them and thought it was pretty cool, but all that stopped when I pulled them off and half my chin came with them. Every time I stretched my mouth I could feel the ice breaking and pulling the hair, it was really weird. I couldn't believe that just from breathing ice actually formed on my beard. On top of that, my water formed about an 1/8 inch layer of ice in my bottle and froze the spout completely shut. I mean I couldn't even open it, not even with my teeth - it was nuts!


The one day I was really rushed to get my ride in so I decided to do a 10 mile ride. The whole time my legs were burning and all I could think of was getting back so that I wouldn't be late to pick Bec up from work and make it to my hair appointment on time. After I got back I was going through my bike computer and noticed that my average speed was 17.3mph. Now for anyone who doesn't ride that doesn't really mean anything, but for me it was crazy. My average is usually around 15 - 15.5mph, so to bump it up 2mph was quite a jump I thought. But when I think about how professionals average 20-25mph over 100 miles it kind of puts things in perspective.

After I started this whole biking idea I decided in order to keep it from getting boring I would need to come up with different types of rides and exotic places (in a 200 mile radius) to go to keep my interest and not have it feel like work. One of the rides I wanted to do was ride in the rain. Luckily for me, I live in PA where winter means it will snow one day and then 2 days later rain so much it'll cause wide spread flooding - and that's exactly what happened. Riding in the rain wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I thought with being all wet I would get really cold, but I never did. The only time I got a little cold was when I would stand up to climb a hill and I had to sit back down on my wet padded shorts. That chill runs right up your crack and into your spine! I learned to only stand up when I had to.

Rain Ride from Jesse McDonald on Vimeo.

After I took off my other sock water came streaming out when I twisted it. That was what I really wanted to show, but unfortunately I chose the disappointing side that had nearly no water. Now I just look like a fool and a sissy for saying I was so wet. I totally would have looked tougher if I had wrung out the other sock.

Well I'm officially one month in and I have yet to be run off the road by a car, fall over from being stuck in my pedals, or blow a tire in the middle of a ride. I look forward to one, or more likely all, of those events happening and getting to post from a hospital. Until then I'll just keep posting the normal boring way... at home.

109 miles in 2 weeks... 2761 to go