HELLuvaRIDE

there's a very slow group ride leaving out of palos next saturday morning. i might join them just so i can feel good about myself again... i have no idea how the group ride was this past saturday. i never saw anybody. i occasionally ran into people at trail intersections but then they promptly left when i arrived. i must've smelled or something. i hope everyone had a good ride.
four hours plus on saturday. it was way faster than i had planned and to add to that i was still suffering from being sick. so not only was i last (as i expected)... i was way further back than i should've been. at first i thought i'd leave the ride as i couldn't catch my breath for a long time. it was worse knowing that everyone was waiting on me as it made me super anxious. it got so bad at one point i thought i was gonna faint and lose breakfast from lack of oxygen. after climbing zip and not knowing which direction everyone went i relaxed and just tried to catch my breath. john and i pretty much thought we went the wrong way and figured we'd just ride and enjoy ourselves. we even stopped to pee. turns out we did go the right way, d'oh. and everyone was waiting for us at the bottom of porno hill. we climbed up dynamite road and hit three ravines next. i was finally able to catch my breath on that trail. but the damage was done. way later on across lagrange after doing all of the island and swallow cliff, i had a good crash. my front wheel snagged a bundle of roots sticking out of the side of the earth. i wish i had my camera to post a pic. my leg is pretty gnarly where the rock snagged it. i'm having a hard time wearing pants today (not to john's dismay) as it's right where my knee bends and yer pants crease. luckily no damage to the bike, it slammed into the rocks pretty hard- even dislodged my rear wheel, so i was suprised yet relieved. apparently sara lost her ovary, again. i only saw the aftermath- sara dusting her self off. it was super dusty out. almost dangerous in spots. i'm still picking dirt out of my ears and nose. my eyes are spewing a funky dirty grossness... although i think that has stopped. in the end tony and i opted to take the sport course. we bypassed cemetary hill trail and rolled on down to 95th. then the road home. he was cramping, i was cramping- everything below my crotch was a complete crampy mess for the last 45 minutes of the ride. had i expected that long and hard of a ride i'd've brought a replacement drink. i didn't have a horrible time, i did have some moments of fun- mainly towards the end when everyone slowed down and we chatted and laughed. but i guess i expected more horsing around. more poo flinging ya know.
towards the end of the race season we told ourselves that after sheboygan we would take care of our poor house. it's a wreck. we never really did any spring cleaning this year so it all just added up. we planned on tackling a room or two on the weekend and do any misc stuff during the week. this saturday after the hella ride we tackled the spare bedroom. this bedroom held everything from posters to spare clothes to a child slide. a wreck is an understatement. we conquered it saturday late afternoon. dang it felt good. we had about 8 garbage bags full of clothes to bring to goodwill. we even dropped that off too. ran a couple of errands (vacuum cleaner bags) and headed out for a real late dinner. marios... mmmmmm... oh and get this, i had a daiquiri, i wasn't even buzzed!
sunday we slept in a bit later than usual. had some breakfast and tackled the office. how can two people collect so much junk? anyway, we conquered that room as well. amazing. it feels good to get it done. asthmatics worse nightmare though, the dust was thick. we then busted out to target and the depot to get some bins and photo holder junk and price some shelving and drawers out. we have some closet planning to do.
next weekend mesa ride, casey's room (should be fun) and maybe the utility room. then jackson park for cross. this week will be filled with building john's cross bike. should be fun.
i also need to get bikes ready to sell. john's carbon nrs, xtc carbon, and my blur (maybe- i saw it the other day and it's just so damn good looking). the surly is ready to go. it even has pedals on it. i may sell my cross bike too- i want a 29er or another cross bike- steel of course. the basement is starting to look old, it needs some fresh wheels down there.