First Longish Ride Of The Year

Here, have a dorktastic, slightly out of focus photo of a very sweaty me, complete with an indentation from the Coolmax Shorty that I wear to keep sweat from running down my face.

Tonight after work I went on my first long-ish bike ride of the year, totaling just over 36 miles. I left my house just before 6pm with the intention of riding to Metro Beach, but turned around about two miles from the park (at Crocker and Metro Parkway) because it was starting to get cold.

In the low laying / windless areas the temperature was much closer to freezing, so heading back home through parks and over the low-laying streams was a bit bitter at times. Thankfully once I got closer to roads again things warmed up to today’s nicely comfortable weather.

During this I was only insulted by random strangers a handful of times; typical for riding in this area. Three people honked at me, but the passenger in one of the vehicles strangely apologized. Two people shouted things, including a very loud and almost horse sounding “fucking freak!”, and one person came within 6′ of hitting me as I crossed an intersection and they made a 35MPH right hand turn. (I’m certain this person saw me, as my bike was fully lit up, there are bright street lights there, and I made eye contact with both the driver and the female passenger as they began their turn.)

This was also the first time I was able to try wearing a cycling jersey while riding, and I must say that I found it quite a bit more comfortable than the $9 workout t-shirts from Target that I’d worn last year. This may prove to be a problem, because these jerseys aren’t cheap. Maybe I can find a way to get a bunch at a discount or free… Hmm… I do think I’ll probably be buying this Dogfish Head jersey as soon as they sort out their pricing error. (It currently says $50 discount, but has the original price as $49 and the discounted price as $99.