Cabin Fever

I caught myself daydreaming today. I dreamt it was sunny and warm. I dreamt that all my winter clothes were packed away in some box at the back of my closet. I dreamt of rides with mixtures of leaves and mountain laurel, and perhaps the sounds of cicada in the distance. I dreamt of anything better than what we have now, but it was only a dream.

The snow has cleared up significantly since this picture, but it still sucks.

For a solid twenty minutes, as I sat in a class discussing who-knows-what, I imagined the simple activity of cornering through trails. Wide corners, shallow corners, off-camber, rocky, rooty, fast, and slow, I imagined them all. I sat fixated on cornering. All my rides for the past two months have been on the road, great for training, but incredible boring. Every off-road option is restricted due to the snow; even the fireroads are inaccessible! Hopefully, the warmer weather will be able to melt most of this snow over the next two weeks. Even then, the trails will be drowning and fireroads may be the only option, which is still better than nothing.

When my cabin fever got the best of me, I tried to say "to hell with it!" on Saturday and ride up to Tussey Ridge. In the back of my head, I knew this was going to be a failed ride, but I had to make the attempt. I parked at the forestry lot and began my little spin. The roads were terrible, and I never saw a single inch of pavement the whole ride. For the lower portion of the road, I was able to get traction where car tracks had packed down the snow. But these tracks were inconsistent, and I was constantly losing momentum when the well-packed treads turned to crunchy snow with no warning. As I approached the upper portions of the road, any good treads disappeared, and I was left to muscle for traction for a long time.

I reached the trail-head for Tuxedo to find pristine snow blanketing any sign of trail. Not even hikers had attempted to push their way to the ridge, at least not this way. I humored myself by making the attempt to hike a small portion of the trail, but as soon as I stepped off the road my foot disappeared under the white hue, and left only my kneecap visible. I shuffled through the opening portion of the trail for a minute or two, then went back to my bike to begin the descent.

By this point the sun began to hide behind the ridges, and I was feeling the chill. To complement the decreasing temperature, my descending pace was only slightly faster than my climbing pace thanks to the road conditions. Without a good source of light, it was difficult to predict where and when the snow would transfer from packed to soft. These transitions were often accompanied by loss of control or, on one or two occasions, a crash. I reached my car when it was well past cold and dark, and I was ready to go home. But this lackluster ride was still rewarding, mainly because it wasn't on the road.

Monday night rolls around, and I am beginning to feel like Jack Torrance. But instead of attacking my roommate with an axe, I decided to be moderately productive and give the bikes some love. The end result? The most blingin'-est cable housing ever.

Insert Goldmember reference at your leisure.

I acquired this gold, braided housing over a year ago, and just never found a good reason to use it (mostly because I neglected to change my cables and housing in this time period). I was worried it may end up looking a bit tacky, but I think it worked well with the other colors on the bike. 

The fact that everything is clean for once really helps with the aesthetics. I assure you, this will not last long.

The cross bike received a similar treatment, but I neglected to take home derailleur cables from the shop, so the work is incomplete. 

Along with the install of the gears and fancy housing, I was able to pinpoint the cause of my brake problems that surfaced recently. My rotors wore down over the past year, and were getting dangerously thin. With the new rotors on, I actually have some substantial braking power (and not as much damn squealing!). 

The IF is ready for some good ridin', now we just have to wait for the weather to catch up. As for me, I have to get going on turning fat-tim into racing-tim; I have some pretty big events coming up this year, so fitness is going to take top priority. This prioritizing includes more than a few nutritional changes, too. Who knows, maybe I'll even learn to be fast this year... (don't count on it).