In an effort to save my legs for this weekends up coming festivities I decided to dust off my road bike and hit the asphalt. It really wasn't that dusty, Melinda keeps the house pretty spotless. I go through stages when it comes to riding bikes. For the past 2 years I've been riding my mountain bike almost exclusively. I haven't fallen out of love with my road bike, we've just had quite a few new trails open up in my area and I've done quite a bit of traveling, exploring trails outside of my state.
Monday I tried to get a group ride up but could find any takers and I just didn't feel like fighting the spiderwebs by myself in this sweltering heat and mashing the singlespeed. It was way too hot to run so I decided to get the road bike out since I haven't in a while and take it easy using all the gears it had to offer. I realized something as I was suiting up to ride, my gloves and my road shoes are in dire need of replacement. My gloves once were nice but my shoes never were. The shoes I own are like my road bike the first pair I've ever owned. I bought a cheap pair of shoes that I found on online in the clearance bin since I had just spent all my $$ on two road bikes with the intention of upgrading later. I never did and I guess since road shoes don't take the abuse mtn bike shoes do they last 3 times as long. My road shoes which are 3 or 4 years old still look fairly new where as my mtn shoes look 10 years old and I just bought them last year. The problem with my road shoes, the fit is terrible. Having a good pair of mtn bike shoes I can REALLY tell the difference. My other problem, everytime I bring up the subject of new road shoes Melinda shoots me down. She doesn't like the dangers that come with road riding and I can kinda understand but I still want a new pair.
Anyway my ride went about as well as it could other than some old guy who decided to run a stop sign as he pulled out in front of me then realizing his mistake slowed down as if that would fix things. If he would have sped up it would have been better as rim brakes suck. The only good thing about his slowing down was that he had his window down and was able to hear every negative word I said to him.
Riding solo on the road can get pretty boring but it was exactly what I needed, an easy spin on a bike with plenty of gears. Hopefully I can find time to join in on some of the group rides going on around town, I feel way out of the loop. I may have to score some new shoes before hand, those old ones are killing me.
This weekend we're heading back to Wilkesboro NC for a weekend full of mountain biking and camping NTMBA style. I'm look forward to riding something different with a large group of friends. The Maxxis series final race just happens to be at Dark Mountain on Sun so if I'm not feeling too weary from all the riding and festivities I might just my throw my hat into the ring and race the Monkey in the ss catagory. I've never figured out all the CAT 1, 2, 3 business but I know what singlespeed is. It should be a fun weekend that should bring good stories and videos for your entertainment.
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