Back On The Road

If you are a Michigan resident I will kindly ask “What the holy hell cakes happened to our nice freakishly warm weather?”  If you are not a Michigan resident please pay no attention to the previous sentence.  Well after a few tweaks here and there, loosen bolt, tighten bolt shimmy shimmy, measure, adjust, tweak a little more…..the Tri-Cross is back in operation and fully road worthy.  Well, nearly 100% road worthy there is in fact some considerable scratches on my brake/ shifter lever and the bar tape on my left drop is looking quite gnarly.  My Garmin took a small beating and my Fat Cyclist jersey has found its way to the trash bin…. other than that the bike and I are good to go.  Do I have plans on replacing the bar tape or the brake/ shifter lever….eventually but I think I will wait until daily cycling does not constitute running the gauntlet that would rival the Khumbu Ice Falls.  Let’s just face it, I was begging for it really, I held my middle finger in the face of fate and good fortune for far too long, had become brash, verbose, arrogant and cocky about my aptitude to ride unscathed through the foul weather.  I get it, I accept this, and now I must move on.  “That’s it right, you’re done for the winter right” they ask me with trepidation in their voices.  “Nay” I yell and I make grandiose gesticulations and even more grandiose claims of “Never surrender” and “I would rather send my frame to smelting before I ride that trainer!”  Which is more or less true because truth be told I will gladly take a concrete face plant over trainer rides anytime…..and this is when I am threatened with psychiatric inpatient therapy.