Hello all of you in cyberspace and beyond. This is Lug Bro. No. 2, recently known as Fardels Bear. Apologies for the long silence. Blame 60 hour work weeks plus the commute; blame the internet being down at home. Blame the weather being too crappy to ride. But all that no more. Today is the most beautiful day I can imagine. I love the autumn. The air is cool and clean and clear. The fruit is ripening on the trees. The new rice is harvested. It's a good time of year. And after next week's school festival, 60 hour weeks should be a thing of the past (at least until June, but that's not for a long time). But we've been good. Tomo's flamenco performance at the beginning of the month was wonderful. Her folks and grandmother came down from Hokkaido and it was nice to all be together. So we've been busy, but it's been all right.
And today we finally had the right weather for a ride! I've decided I need to tone down my ambitions and stick to shorter rides for a few months to give my knee time to heal and my muscles a chance to get stronger, so I didn't go with the (fricking fast) hundred mile group today. Good thing, too, since I'm certain that if I had gone with them I wouldn't have been able to maintain the presence of mind to realize just how beautiful a day it is. The group I rode with did about forty miles. It was short, but, somehow, it was fricking fast. Two new riders showed up today and kept the pace up near 38 - 40 km/h on the flats on the return. I was feeling good and I tried to keep up, but at one point I stopped to take my jacket off and stuff it in my jersey pocket and then there was no way I was going to catch up on my own. There were lots of riders today, so I just dropped back to the next group, (and it's not like we're racing--we stop and regroup every 10 kilometers or so). So I'm tired now, even though the ride was short, but the good news is that my knee doesn't hurt a bit. Taking a lot of time off was probably the best thing that I could do.
Here are some pictures from the ride today, of Mt. Tsukuba and of the park near our house, where I stopped on the way home to sit and enjoy the mid-day sun.
2 comments:
Having passed up any riding onan ideal, unusual warm and sunny autumn weekend, I enjoyed your description of the perfect conditions in Tsukuba. For me, the trench is filled back in and the wire cable now runs from the basement to the garage. At least it kept me outdoors the entire, beautiful weekend. I am pleased for you that you got away to ride.
Hey Dan, glad to see you back. We've missed you. The blue sky in your pictures makes me very jealous. We have had nothing but gray and rain for the past 3 days...
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