The Good Hurt

 The landing zone from my perfectly executed Flying-Squirrel to Inverted-Turtle

Last night I went out for a two hour night ride with my new training partner, Charles.  I've done three rides with him in the last week and a half and I've left each one beat up for a different reason.  The first one was a 70 mile gravel ride two weekends ago that had us in a good headwind for the first half.  I fought cramps for the last 40 miles and was ruined for the next couple days.  The next weekend we planned a route around a long section of continuous B roads and stuck to it even though it rained the entire day before.  We walked at least three miles of the six mile stretch of B road muck, our bikes slung over our backs.  Once again, I was ruined for the next couple days.

So anyway,  back to last night.  The highlight of the trip was a frozen B road.  Lesson of the day: don't outrun your lights on sketchy terrain.  I hit an iced over puddle, my front wheel broke through, and I went ass-over-handlebars for the first time this year, landing on my back in the icy puddle.  My entire back side soaked in the sub-freezing weather, we figured this would be a good time to head back.  Luckily most of my gear stayed warm even when wet, the exception being my bibs.  My right sleeve even froze stiff within a couple miles, but for the most part I was ok.  Surprisingly, this was the ride that didn't leave me hurting...  Much.

It sounds like we'll be doing a weekly gravel night ride throughout the winter from now on, and we even talked about opening this up as a social thing that extends beyond gravel after the first of the year.  Think longer distance cyclocross type action...  Gravel, pavement, snow, etc.  Other than that, it's time to start shifting my focus over to the Stormtrooper and the snow.  Tuscobia is only a week away...