Today I finally ventured out into the cold of Colorado for my first bike ride since driving my little road racer 1,200 miles from California on the back of the Volvo. Dawning my Chinese riding pants and socks, I also made sure to put on my sleeved Mizell Racing jersey because of weather. I packed some goods in case I broke down or stopped to dine, which included a light jacket for any sudden storms that may approach this reckless land and strapped it all to the back of my Trek 1000, just so I could reminisce of the good old days of packing it all down the road. I inflated the tires to their peek performance level of 120 psi, strapped on my helmet, and downloaded MapMyRide for my iPhone. (I also started up my Holux m-241 for redundancy and spot checking.) The only thing left to do was embark.
I stepped out into the brisk 70 degree air, lightly clouded, so the nuclear heat of the sun could be avoided. I shivered. This was a desolate place. The light cloud cover, still air, and seventy degree ambience created a surreal mind fog. Burrrrr…fog.. I plunged right into my ride with vigor and quickly found two factors to be the most obnoxious: one, there was debris all over the roads from the previous storm and de-icing techniques, two, I was dehydrated before my first mile was completed. Racing downhill, I was struggling for good deep breaths, and found mucus collecting faster than I could project it into traffic. However, my body quickly warmed up and I drained a water bottle. Then I began to enjoy the ride, the weather, the scenery and my brief loop through the springs proved to be a fantastic dry, thin-air, up-down warm up for the end of a riding season up here in the Colorado Rockies.
… I suppose I should add that it really isn’t cold here. It’s beautiful and warm and today was a perfect day to ride… but I’ve got to scare the other Californians away, right?
One response to “November Ride = Exhaustion”
Congratulations on your first adventure out by bike. It looks like a pretty nice route with some good hills. I think I’ll look into getting your bike some snow tires for Christmas, and maybe some ear muffs (for you, not the bike).