2013 season coming into focus

With the click of a mouse yesterday - or, more accurately, with some frantic tapping on my phone - the 2013 season suddenly snapped into focus. As we sat eating noodles-to-die-for at Gene's Chinese Flatbread Cafe after a foggy spin out to Chelmsford, Pamela reminded me that registration for the Dirty Kanza 200 had opened that morning. Matt Roy, The Wilcox and I had tossed around the idea of participating this year, but we hadn't fully committed to it yet. I knew that registration had filled in 2-1/2 hours last year, so a combination of noodles and mention of registration caused a sudden adrenaline spike. To make matters straightforward, Matt and David were in Madison, Wisconsin, supporting Mo in the Nation Cyclocross Championships (where she finished 7th - way to go, Mo!). There followed some frantic texting and frenzied attempts to break my own Bikereg and Paypal passwords (not having logged in to either account on my phone before). Gene & Co. were kind enough to not kick us out into the chilly fog while all this was going on and (not so) soon, the deed was done!


In particular, this now means that late May and June will be very busy. We are running DROVES again in Vermont, the weekend before Dirty Kanza. That, in turn, will precede the Green Mountain Double by two weeks. And Ride Studio Cafe are cooking up something special later in the month too.

I hope I can still see this clearly at the end of June...

I woke on Sunday morning to a weather forecast promising positively searing temperatures for January in New England. One of my big challenges in the Dirty Kanza will be dealing with high temperatures, so I thought I should begin my heat training straight away. In time honoured early season tradition, Pamela and I rolled out our fixed wheel steeds this morning and cruised over to Ride Studio Cafe for a quick shot of espresso flavoured PEDs before hitting the road for real.

While Pamela set her sights on another culinary destination, I decided to get really serious and do something that vaguely resembled training. I clipped in and aimed northwest, for some rolling hills. However, while the weather forecast temptress had lured me out of bed (it's funny how temptresses work the other way in the cinema, but I digress. I'm trying to be serious, after all) the actual conditions were rather more prosaic.

The combination of recent snow and today's sweltering 4C/40F temperatures led to another day of fog and sloppy road conditions. However, slop beats ice and slush any day, which meant that some of my favourite roads in Westford, Tyngsborough and Dunstable were ripe for riding.

Riding fixed breeds a full appreciation for all aspects of road topography and scenery. I really didn't stop to take photos because I was a broken man!

In keeping with the serious theme, I'm going to sit back this evening and work on my Training Philosophy.