Trepid Explorer: Back on the virtual horse - First ride of the new year.

Self-confessed woos. I have been having a hard time recently and using it as an excuse for not riding my bike. The things going on in my life leading up to Christmas left me excessively tired and in no fit state for getting out of bed at 5:30 am, never mind riding home again at the end of the day. It’s not the exercise that I’m too tired for, it’s the early mornings. If it were the exercise I was afraid of, I’d have been up at 5:30 am eating breakfast, but through most of December I went ride- and breakfast-free every working day, crawling out of bed as late as 6:25 and getting into work on the dot, if not late.

Then over Christmas I had flu so the new year did not get off to quite the flying start it could have but now I am mended and rested and I have “le courage” back. I managed breakfast every day last week and I swam and I ran and I went for walks at lunchtime. I am back on the horse - so to speak. Today I am back on the two-wheeled horse.

I went to the hairdressers on Thursday for an appointment to remove my frontal lobe and return to blonde. I made a special effort to run away from work before I should have and felt bad for doing it. When I got there, the hairdresser was not there. She had an “emergency”. It was suspicious. The colouring process takes two hours, and she only works till 6pm. My 4:30 appointment was suddenly not physically possible and could not be made any other day of the week at 4:30 pm. Realising that the hairdresser had probably just thrown a pissy-fit and gone home at 4, I got fed up with being messed about by this salon for the second time in two visits and refused a weekend appointment, muttering under my breath about doing it myself – the hair that is.

For the boys and those who haven’t gone blonde before, I need to explain that to go from chestnut brown to blonde takes two processes – a lightening stage where you remove all colour from your hair (and I mean ALL colour) then the bit where you actually turn it whatever shade of blonding takes your fancy. I picked a dark ash blonde (“dirty blonde” as it is know in our circles) in an attempt to match up with my grey highlights when they come through.

I LOVE the lightening bit. You never know what you’re gonna get, but you can always just about guess it involves bright yellow with some reddish highlights in there. It’s probably bad for it, but I dry my hair in between stages just to find out what it looks like dry and here you go…

Cat under duress

(c) Andy Click on photo for a larger image

Newly blonded on Friday I made my third pass-by the bike shop on my lunch break – figuring that for the last two evenings, they had probably shut by the time I got there at 5pm. I mean normally they’re open till 5:30 but it might be a winter opening hours thing. No, they’re shut all through January. This makes me sick as they’re probably on some luxurious winter training camp in Mexico, soalking up the rays whilst I work. Here. Bastards.

So I went to the other bike shop (the expensive one) and they’re closed through two weeks of January, though I could see them actually working, doing inventory. Yawn. I have ranted about this before – but I can’t stand business owners who whinge about people not supporting them. Being open would be a start guys!! Though I know they’re like santa’s little helpers through Christmas, I can’t imagine it’s a great start to the new year if something happens to your kid’s new bike and you can’t get it repaired. Where do you go? Canadian Tire (see “Halfords”). I HATE it when I have to buy bike parts from Halfords / CT. I used to hate it in England and I hate it here.

So the world has been letting me down, but on Saturday we went skiing… here.
A part of the fun is the drive. The weather wasn't so good, but the lake was still as death and made for an impressive mirror.

(c) Andy Click on photo for a larger image
The top of the mountain is now open, though "The Back Side" is still scarier than necessary

(c) Andy Click on photo for a larger image

On the way down the mountain I saw my friend Eric feeding his cows which is impressive since he described them to me as the second-cows-on-the-right on the way up the road. Navigation by cows has never worked for me in the hills before.

And on Sunday the new brake blocks were fitted onto ‘Green’ like a dream. No swearing involved at all except I found out how terribly salty ‘Green’ was and felt bad about not washing her for ages.

As we rode up the hill into a pelting headwind this morning, I thought, “Remember when you were new and shiny and I was super-fit and athletic, we were so good together. We stayed with the pack on road races at the motorsport track in Folkestone and I used to go swimming at the pool before I rode you to work up at the top of the cliffs.” Those were the days. Those were sunny days.

The wind kept me warm this morning, trying so hard to cut through it. I enjoyed the uphills because I could hide from the wind and I hated the downhills as I had to pedal. I rode along the KVR clinging to the edges of orchards, trying to squeeze into the stationary boundary layer of the wind as it ripped along the edges of the trees. I had my head down as there’s no one else there to look out for at 6am except the deer. I didn’t see them today but they were there, laughing at me from the trees.

In the style of Crazy Biker Chick, I had to hang back from the end of a little side-road whilst the transit bus driver cut a huge chunk off the corner as he turned in front of me. Good job I am a switched-on ex-truck-driving biker chick and recognised the predicament before it arose, otherwise we’d have been in a geometric pickle or I would’ve been a pancake.

My cyclomputer stats are buggered because it only worked for part of the journey (I took a sneak peek, riding in the wind so I could tell you all how chronically slow I was going and to my horror I was doing 0kmph). I adjusted it so it worked but got to the office to find out it has times and speeds on it from my last ride – whenever that was - so it’s all buggered. Take that average from before and I managed to drag it down to 15.4kph. Who knows?

The good news? I get a push home and it wasn’t raining.

So for new years self-indulgent babble – I will make the same resolutions I make every year – to train at least every other day and to eat more healthy and to drink less booze. I probably keep my resolutions better than your average Jo, because they’re regular to my life anyway. I don’t really need to resolve to exercise regularly (give or take the odd week) or to eat healthily (give or take the odd coffee, donut, bar of chocolate or bottle of beer). I suppose those give and takes are the things stopping me from being the epitome of athletic perfection so every year I resolve all over again. I think I’ll re-read this page on the eve of the Peach City Triathlon this summer and we can see how I did.

The only non fitness related resolution is to look out for myself more often, recognise my downward spirals and stop them with something good – damn good – before they go too deep.

Despite it being a grey day outside I think the gloom has gone from my life. The winter blues have been quashed by the occasional trip up the mountain to ride above the cloud and in general, I’ve become accustomed to the cloud layer. Soon the dawn will be breaking on my ride to work again and, though it’s bad for the snow on the coast, I am selfish and enjoy the pineapple express bringing us +4 temperatures in the morning and plenty of moisture for our snow deposits on-high.

Who said it’s cold in the BC interior?

Trepid Explorer

Monday, January 09, 2006

Back on the virtual horse - First ride of the new year.

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