That was the headline on Syracuse.com this afternoon. Apparently as of 2:45 there were nearly 30 accidents caused by snowy, icy roads. Sounds like a good time to be out for a ride. Local cycling hero Paul K., owner of Syracuse Bicycle and all around rider extraordinaire sent out a quick e-mail last night asking if anyone wanted to ride. He said he'd recently hurt his back, hadn't ridden much the last 3 months, planned to ride easy, and was taking his CX bike. I've fallen for that one before, so I packed a lunch. Paul joked that I was stuffing a lot of food in my jacket. I joked that I've been on his easy rides before. Just because he's carrying one small water bottle and two twizzler's doesn't mean that you aren't in for an epic. In this case the ride wasn't too bad, but the weather was bordering on epic. I'd tell you how long we rode, but someone might tell Turbo, and then he'd be on his trainer all night trying to catch up with Paul.
Suffice it to say, we saw the Rez, Marcellus, Skaneateles and Camillus. We were supposed to meet up with Shep and Beck but last we heard from them they had just summited Everest, were working their way back down the mountain and were potentially going to need to build a snow cave somewhere off of Rt 80.
We contemplated taking a picture of ourselves with the crazy Dicken's characters in Skaneateles, or potentially some action shots drafting their horse and carriage, but the weather was well past deteriorating so we pressed on. In hindsight a snapshot taken with some nut job who has spent the better part of the summer growing a beard so he could look like an actual Dicken's character would have been pretty cool. Add to that the nickel sized snow flakes and our own bizarre collection of clothing and we'd have had some sort of Star Trekesque, lycra clad back in time moment. Maybe next time, that would have been a great pic for the blog.
The roads started getting pretty dicey, but the Michelin Jet's worked their magic and somehow we stayed upright even as we got passed by snowplows, passed accidents, and crossed slick train tracks. Good times.
The best news of the day came from my wife when I called on my way home. Anyone that knows us knows that I do most of the cooking but today she made stew. It was great, and I look forward to 2011 when she is inspired to make it again.
If you're up for some winter rides, drop me a line. As I've mentioned, the goal is to stay off of the trainer to the extent that I can on the weekends. Feel free to put that on my tombstone if one of the snowplows gets me . . . "Loved by few, his goal was to stay off of the trainer to the extent that he could on the weekends." That kind of has a ring to it. Hopefully I don't actually get hit by a snowplow though. Predicting my death in a lame blog entry would be . . . well, lame. Not nearly as cool as a surfer getting eaten by a shark and pooped back into the ocean. At best, my bike and I would end up in a garbage bag after the Onondaga Cycling Club Earth Day clean-up.
PS - I rode the 29er yesterday, it was pretty sweet. More to follow.
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