Mike's laying on the couch across the room from me lamenting loudly that his pictures from the weekend have yet to be blogged. I've been engrossed in a project for a crochet class my mom and I are taking (a baby cardigan - it's so cute and I'm elated that I've read the pattern and created it *almost* all by myself), but after having to tear out a bazillion rows because I missed a "chain 2" an hour ago, I'm frustrated enough with crafting for the night that Mike wins.
Unlike my cute pink 18 mo cardigan, my Specialized tricross comp bike has yet to be aggravating since we brought it home one week and two days ago. If it is possible for a bike to serve as chiropractor, marriage counselor, and mood enhancing drug, this is the one.
With the natural gas boom in our podunk county, the main roads, which were already far from ideal for bike riding, have become entrenched in large truck traffic. Stone truck after stone truck after water truck after water truck after large equipment trailer. There are days that traveling the roads by car is unsettling, much less trying to run or bike.
Lucky we are though to be surrounded by rural dirt roads. SURROUNDED. Mike has spent the unseasonably warm and snowless winter touring the back roads on his tricross bike. He pulls out of the driveway and comes back hours later covered and mud and grinning ear to ear. When I run after dark, he escorts me with his bright helmet light. He rides up the dirt roads to family dinners at my mom's house. He rides all the places around here ideal for riding - all the places the gas traffic and the tri and road bikes can't go.
Chenango Cycles in Binghamton had the exact same bike Mike bought two years ago, only in my size and on phenomenal sale. Being a 2010 model they no doubt really wanted to get rid of it. I've been eyeing it for a couple of months. Last Saturday after the St. Pat's 4 miler, we pulled the trigger and brought it home.
I've never enjoyed riding a bicycle so much, and never felt so comfortable on a bike. We're on grit and gravel and stone and mud and climbing and descending and climbing and climbing, but riding this bike is like driving a Subaru with two wheels - no matter what the condition of the road under your wheels, you're safe and it won't let you down.
Four hours on the bike Saturday morning loosened up the nagging pain in my right leg from a pestery bulging disc that acts up when my mileage goes up, and my run later that day felt the best any had all week. Those four hours were also the first Mike and I were ever able to be on bikes together and not argue - we have a strained road biking history to the extent that we refer to tandem road bikes as divorces with wheels. Not only did we not argue, we got along famously, even after I had a minor meltdown regarding large rocks the gas company has spread over a few miles of Warren Center back roads and an incident with a German shepherd. If you don't know, I'm terrified of dogs. There were tears. But the stones and dog were nothing fig newtons at the LeRaysville Dandy couldn't fix, and I pulled back into our driveway happier than I've ever been after a bike ride.
We went out for another ride Sunday afternoon after our long run, and tonight I got my first chance to escort Mike on his run in the dark and drizzle. Mike did all of the picture taking this weekend, so I apologize in advance that this is a bit of a photo collage of myself - but if you look past the cyclist in the pictures, you'll see some of the beautiful places we're able to ride...in tshirts in March no less!
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