Where's that groundhog?
More developments, more negative than positive.
I’ve read a couple biking-related books recently: Graeme Fife’s “The Beautiful Machine” and Bill Strickland’s “Ten Points”. Unfortunately, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend either of them. The former is rambling, self-indulgent, off-topic, and lacking in cohesiveness, although it does have a couple chapters that describe rides along many of my favorite Massachusetts routes. The latter, despite being written by Bicycling magazine’s former editor, isn’t really about cycling, but is more of a disturbing tale about domestic abuse and recovery.
Oh, but I didn’t mind Jamie Smith’s amusing and informative book “Roadie: The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer”. In fact, I’ve gotten some ideas from it about how to write this year’s Pan-Mass Challenge travelogue.
On that topic, I have registered for this year’s ride. This is the event’s 30th anniversary year, and my ninth. Unless all my sponsors bail on me, this year I’ll surpass $50,000 in lifetime fundraising.
Despite wanting to take part in the Boston Brevet Series’ 200k (125-mile) and 300k (185-mile) rides this spring, I withdrew my membership in Randonneurs USA after learning that some riders carry firearms on their rides, and the organization does not discourage it. I don’t want anything to do with riders who carry firearms, period.
Finally, I borrowed Jer’s indoor cycling trainer and have been doing interval training on it-to either a 45-minute Spinervals DVD or a 64-minute Carmichael Training Systems one-every other day. I expect it to help my early season performance, although that matters a lot less now that I’ve withdrawn from the brevet series. Aside from taking the old bike out just to play around in the middle of big snowstorms, I guess I’ve become too sensitive to the cold to do as much winter riding as I once did, so the trainer helps, even though I’m not recording those “miles” in my training log.
Although the calendar has only recently changed to February, I’m anxious to get out on the road again, but that won’t happen until things warm up a bit!