Winter in Indiana

So this past week, I got two good rides in before the weather turned absolutely frigid. My training week started with trainer and roller rides, and then finally got outside. My first ride, I managed to get about 3 miles away from home, and with my training tubies, managed to flat both of them. I had some Pitstop, so i sorta got them sealed up to roll home. I managed to get about a mile, before the walking ensued. Well that took up about an hour of my time. I tossed on another set of wheels and headed out. I got a good 3 hour low intensity ride in with some different territory than I usually ride. It was definitely a mood booster to make it outside, I hate inside days.

Now for Friday. This was to be a glorious ride. I set out northbound and hit my favourite strip of brick street in town, and made my way up into the Northeast part of our county. Up there it gets nice and rolly, and there are some good overall routes. I turned west and stopped at one of my favourite cafes' for some soup to warm up a bit. That was about 3 hours into it, and I planned to be home in an hour or so. Unfortunately, well for some, a lot of the paved roads have been flooded over in the area I needed to go through. I was one of those folks who took pleasure in that. Mainly because of the "forced detours." I had a blast ripping down muddy, rock strewn roads, and I felt like Johan Museeuw was chasing me down. It was great. Its been a little while since road riding has brought a smile to my face, and it took riding through the mud to make it happen. So, all of the detours added up to about 13 miles, and about 10 of those were basically mud roads. So my 4 hour ride turned into a solid 5 hour, Roubaix-style fun fest.

Saturday was a little different. The weather was turning, so the temps were dropping and the winds picked up a bit. It was supposed to be a little group ride with my team director and a few other folks. Well, he couldn't escape the floodwaters, so it turned into a four man fight with the wind. It was the most miserable 3 hour ride I've had in a couple years. I pulled for most of the way out, and at the turnaround, the other guys shifted into their big rings, and just left me. They sat on my wheel for almost 2 hours, and instead of just gradually picking up the pace with the tailwind, they dropped me. They had time for food on my wheel, they drank, they had the whole way to recover. I had no time. This just reaffirms my position on group rides. To train effectively, you must think about yourself as the only one that matters. Making it back was not fun, I had cross winds, and dropping temps, and by the time I was able to eat, I had already bonked. This ride was just miserable. But afterwards, I was able to feast on a delicious veggie burrito, that raised my spirits a bit.

As I mentioned before, I have a training camp in about a month, and I'm beginning to dread its approach. I want to ride in the mountains, but that also means that I'm riding with people that don't get it. They don't understand the aspects of cycling style and class. They don't understand that you don't make a teammate was themselves on a training ride. They don't drop them on the turnaround either.

I'm sick of riding with some of these folks that don't understand:

• that you don't use white bar tape before Memorial Day
• you don't show up with Nashbar or Performance stuff
  
• you don't rock pro team kits on training rides

Its just frustrating, because there are only a few folks around here who do get it. Such as the proper attire; Cycling cap under the helmet, matching bar tape and saddle, proper embrocation, bikes that are clean and ready to go, matching team kit and gloves, and just a sense of class. These are the people that know who Roger de Vlaeminck, Coppi, and VDB are.

Alright, enough of that rant, for now, I'm inside for the next few days because of single digits and negative windchills. Hopefully I get all my stuff for my embrocation so I can start on that.