Long Weekend

The wife, hound and I headed up to the family cabin on Friday. We could not have asked for a more beautiful holiday weekend. My friend Jay and his family joined us late Friday night. Boat rides, drinks, "camp" fires, drinks, marathon Wii sesions, drinks....

Sunday my "cousin" Chip and I climbed on our road bikes and took a spin around the lake. All went well until we rounded a bend and were hit square in the face by a 20 mph headwind. Man o man did that section turn into a suckfest. Later on that day my allergies really started to bug me, so I took one of the wife's Alegra D pills. After a while I felt like I had two or three pots of coffee and generally felt "off". Barely slept that night.

On Monday Chip and I headed out for another ride around the lake. This time I was riding my Dad's custom Waterford instead of my 23 year old Trek. Big mistake. On the 12 speed Trek I shift as little as possible since the shifters are on the downtube. I primarily ride my MTB with all the shifting at my fingertips. Because of that I have an aversion to taking my hands off of the bars, so when riding the Trek I will tough it out using the wrong gear unless I absolutely must shift. My Dad's 20 speed Waterford, on the other hand, has a full Campy Record group with shifting integrated with the brake levers/hoods-not to mention it is about two pounds lighter. This bike was a dream to ride! On a base level it is similar to the Trek in that it is a lugged steel frame. But instead of 23 year old components it has five year old top of the line Campy group and a sweet Rolf wheelset. The bike was smooth, fast and a blast on fast downhills. Stomping on the pedals resulted in an instant surge forward instead of the Trek's steady but slow acceleration. The ability to shift easily and fine tune my cadence made a HUGE difference for this rider.

Why was riding this a "big mistake"? Because when I get back on the Trek I am going to be depressed.

We came home later that day and that evening allergies decided to completely kick my ass. I didn't want to take another Alegra, but the sneezing every two minutes, burning eyeballs, and copious amounts of snot dictated otherwise. Result-No sleep what so ever. I called in sick to work the next morning due to essentially not sleeping for two days. That pseudoephedrine just sends me for a loop. I picked up some plain old Claritan yesterday and that seems to be agreeing with my system a little more. At least I was able to sleep well last night.

Until next time....