Our Name Is Our Virtue

Well, all good things must come to and end. (Editors not: almost all things*) The rollercoaster like frozen tundra that made for such bad ass mountain biking these past few days and nights finally kicked the bucket this afternoon when the sun made a comeback and temps shot into the mid thirties. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted. Consequently, it was back to the road bike for the last five hours this week. Speaking of good things coming to an end, my EIGHT month run without a flat finally came to and end. Lucky for me I was only about 15 minutes climbing from home, so I just rolled it back, where I promptly put back on my cyclocross wheels/tires (I should have never gone back to road slicks). With everything back up and rolling it was too late to go out for the loop I had planed, so I did what I’ve always done to get through my long rides- spend the first two and half hours trying to get as lost/far from home as is possible, then, hopefully find my way back within the limitations of that days duration goal. As the years go by it’s getting harder and harder to get myself completely lost, but once outside the 50 mile radius of home it wasn’t too hard to find some new streets that took me through undiscovered topo. The find of the day was the appropriately named “Mountain Street”. At first sight I wanted to laugh, knowing that there’re no mountains anywhere in the area, but surprisingly it wound its way back and forth up the better part of five hundred feet. The grades where pretty mellow at the start, but it turns to dirt (or ice, as it was today) about half way up and kicks to around 15%. With today, another week is in the books. This means desert and sleep and all the other tomfoolery that comes along with Sunday's culmination of a long week. Like Nick said, “all work and no play is no fun at all.”