Yesterday I finally had an alright day on my bike. It’s been awhile. It wasn’t a great day, but it was a lot better than it has been recently.

Joseph Schmalz rode over to Topeka and met me and we rode back to Lawrence on gravel to meet up with Brian Jensen and Matt Gilhousen at 3pm. It is nice that they can play a little hooky from their jobs at TradeWind Energy when it is going to be nice out to ride. It was in the mid 50’s most of the afternoon, but started cooling off quickly when the sun got low. Bill was about 30 minutes behind Joseph and I, so he showed up a little late to Lawrence. He drank a quick cup of coffee and we headed back towards Topeka. I was going to stay with the Lawrence guys because Trudi had driven over to Lawrence to Christmas shop earlier.

Anyway, I didn’t feel that great when I first started. I’ve been stretching a ton and think it might be making me feel weird riding when starting out. I started feeling better after an hour or so. My left leg was 70% good and I seemed to have some power. I’ve been kind of breathing badly, a little raspiness in my throat, for a long time now. It was still there, but it didn’t seem to matter.

I ended up with close to 70 miles. The average speed wasn’t that great, but it was super windy early and it was on gravel. Afterward I ate in Lawrence with Trudi, then hung for a while at Freestate to watch the KU basketball game. Downtown Lawrence is so great. If you’ve never been there, you should go out of your way to try to make it sometime.

I missed all the new cycling gossip yesterday. I guess the Rick Crawford thing was the biggest yesterday. I have no idea why the guy wouldn’t have just come completely clean to start with. Signing a “pledge” to accept a lifetime ban if involved in addition cases was just plain dumb, if he was involved in additional cases of doping. I’ve already written about whether I think that he was suppling drugs to more than two guys. It seems that Rick Crawford is going to have to start looking for something else to do in the very near future.

Today, winter is officially blowing in here in Eastern Kansas. Well, not really winter. It is supposed to rain this afternoon and then turn to snow at night. I’m going to try to get out this morning before it gets wet. I’m actually mildly excited to see if yesterday was just a one up thing or I’m actually riding better. Either way, it was motivating realizing that I’m not just a POS on a bike all the time.

It was nice riding back to Lawrence with these guys with such a nice sunset.

We ate at the Burger Stand at the Casbah. It is a pretty cool I could just bring my bike into the restaurant.

This is Freestate Brewery, a great place to watch KU basketball. The architecture in downtown Lawrence is all original from the 1800’s.

Sunflower Bike shop has the largest Smart Wool sock offerings of any place I’ve ever been. This is only about 1/3 of the selection.

This is Joseph’s jersey from this year. It replaced a signed Lance jersey in the prime slot. (Dan has correct priorities.) You might think this jersey would fit the Michelin man, but it is an optical illusion.

I saw these two guys walking in downtown. They were so cute. Big German shepherd and little husky I think.

I got my 2013 license back from USAC today. It was very quick turn around. It is the first time I’ve had Master written on my license. I guess that is mandatory if you’re going to race Master’s Worlds in Louisville. It seems stupid. It seems like your birth date would clarify that.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. It was good up in Chicago, other than I ate too much junk. I had lots of good food, but for some reason, once you’re completely full you can always stuff in sweet stuff on top of it. I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that if you’re going to eat dessert and are on a diet, it’s better to eat the dessert first, because you’ll eat less food before it if you do. That just seems wrong.

Yesterday, I got up kind of late, so didn’t get out on my bike until close to noon. By then snow flurries had started. I picked the wrong direction to ride. I wanted to ride to downtown Chicago. Christmas is pretty much the best day of the year to do that because there is hardly any traffic on the roads. The problem was that as I got closer and closer to Lake Michigan, it was snowing harder and harder. I made it to Evanston and Sheridan Road, but by then, the roads were pretty bad. Not really treacherous, at least for me, but sketchy for sure. I know most of the cars passing me weren’t all that comfortable moving into the middle of the road to get by. I turned around and headed back West. About 1/2 way back to Mt. Prospect, the roads were pretty clear, but they were super wet, spraying all over me. It was only 22 degrees out, so I guess it was the salt making the roads wet. My lips were hurting from the spray, so I assume that was the deal. So, I just rode directly back and called it quits at 31 miles.

I ran, did some wind sprints on Christmas Eve. My legs are pretty sore from that. I felt better running than I did a couple weeks ago, so that is a good sign, but really not up to my standards.

We’re driving back to Kansas this morning. Then I have to decide what to do from there. The long range forecast for Topeka doesn’t show much above 40 degrees for the extended future. There are two cross races in Dallas this weekend, but after that, it looks like it is supposed to rain for awhile, even though it is going to be in the 60’s. The 60’s and no rain would be nicer, of course. I guess I have a couple days to decide.

Self portrait before it got real bad.

This is about as far as I got on Sheridan, the Baha’i temple.

My bike was pretty frozen up when I got back.

Luckily, Trudi’s mom was washing clothes and I kept getting buckets full of hot, soapy water. Kind of made me feel green, using recycled wash water to clean my bike.

Here’s Trudi messin’ with Bromont. He doesn’t like it very much and is looking to me for help.