Back Into The Swing Of Things

And I don’t really mean work (or beer unfortunately.) It’s a new year, which means I should probably start looking at the race schedule for the upcoming season. I guess that means I should be training too. I got a little bit of that in over the weekend when I took my new bike trailer to the store for some uh, groceries.





That wasn’t the only riding I did the last few days though. On New Year’s Eve, I managed to drag my ass over to Sherman Branch for some single speed hot lap action. This was my first “real” trail ride on my new single speed wheels. Up until that point, I’d been riding on Captain Jim Bob’s Space adventure and the local greenway. Tough stuff, I know.


The ride was fun, except that I’ve been having some issues with my back. I don’t normally have back problems, so I was a little surprised that I was hurting. I didn’t do anything to aggravate my back or anything. It just starting hurting during the morning, and it progressively got worse. I thought that a ride would help loosen me up a bit, but it didn’t. I felt okay when I was sitting on the seat and pedaling, but as soon as the ride was over I went ride back to being in pain. In fact, I’m still hurting right now.


With a week full of nice weather (aside from cold temps), I hope I don’t have to ignore the bike just to get better. I’m pretty stubborn, so as long as I am physically able to load my bike on the truck and drive somewhere, I’ll probably still be riding. Let’s hope so, for your sake.


Back to the racing thing I guess. It looks like I’ll have a pretty busy schedule in the coming months. I can’t believe it’s time to get back into this shit already. The offseason didn’t seem to last long enough, but at least I didn’t put on too much weight or neglect my bike completely like in years past. I’ll find out if I’m ready in less than two weeks.



Yup, it’s time for the Winter Short Track Series again. Starting on January 15th, we’ll be mixing it up for the five-race series on the short track in the mud, snow, ice, and whatever else Mother Nature throws our way. Every once in a while we’ll get a nice dry day for racing, but most likely we’ll get the same old slop out there. It makes for a fun race though.


Once again there is a Clydesdale class, so that where I’ll be. After mixing it up with the rest of the big boys though, I’ll think I’ll change it up this year. Since the Single Speed class is scheduled to go off almost two hours after the larger fellas, I’m thinking of racing it too. Two races in one day? You betcha.


I probably have no business racing with the rest of the SS monsters here in Charlotte, but I kind of think that’s why I want to do it. I’ll consider it “training”, since there’s no way in hell I can hang with those super fast dudes on one gear (especially after I raced earlier.) It should be fun (I hope), and if anything I should have some good stories to tell.


As for the rest of my season, I’ll get into that another time. I have to sit down and plan this shit out anyway.


As for resolutions, I don’t really do that. You can change your life any day of the year. You don’t have to wait for the calendar to change to another year to do it. I hate change anyway.