Had a great weekend this past weekend including a nice quite Christmas day and some quality time with friends and my parents. My family has always spent our Christmas' together and rarely ever even leave the house on Christmas day. This year my sister and her fiance were out in Ohio with his family so it was just my parents and I. Not that they drove me out or anything (kidding, I love my folks and enjoy almost every moment spent with them), but on Christmas day this year around noon I took off for a quick bike ride just to get out and get in some cycling.
I had used my fixie to get out to the Columbia Heights metro stop on Saturday on my way to college park so Sunday after I picked up my flexcar I grabbed the bike from the bike rack and headed up to my folks house. With presents and bike in tow. Didn't have time to get out on Sunday (and really was hoping for some sweet winter gear for Christmas and didn't bring enough anyway) so naturally despite the rain, Sunday was the day. When I left their place there was a light drizzle but I wasn't too worried about it since I was decked out in a new long sleeve base layer shirt, a new wool jersey, a thermal jersey on top of that and a new Louis Garneau water proof shell on top of that. I also wore an older pair of shorts underneath a new pair of tights with a chamois on top. Unfortunately for me, I am still figuring out how to properly dress under different weather conditions and temperatures.
My upper body was extremely warm and I was contemplating taking off a layer soon after leaving the neighborhood. My legs were a little bit chilly from the start but I figured on the fixie out there they would warm up quickly and my feet with just two layers of socks on under my shoes I knew would get cold but figured that would just be like normal. For a little while the rain stopped for me and I spun along with the only worry being how much more hilly the damn roads were then I ever realized while driving a car around. I immediately went down a large relatively steep (when on a fixie and coasting is not an option) hill, across a bridge and up an even steeper hill and then back down a similar one. Right about there I realized just how fun this ride was going to be.
I found an excellent 'flat' road which I rode down for a while before turning off down another nice 'flat' country road. At some point on this road I decided I could take a left on one of the residential streets there and come back out and manage to have looped around and start to head back home however after climbing to the top of another ridiculous hill I realized that I was entirely wrong about that and had to turn around and spin like an out of control locomotive down another hill. About this time the rain started to pick up on me as well.
My upper body was still perfect with the jacket keeping me completely dry and the warm layers still making me a little over heated. The lower half of my body however was not so comfortable. First of all my feet always get cold when I ride, just bad circulation which is made that much worse when the rest of my body gets cold. Now my feet and legs were basically soaked through and that mixed with the screaming cold air from flying down the hills despite the fact that I was always pedaling was causing frostbite like conditions (not really, but really). Ah well, I guess ofr my birthday I ask for some heavier duty thermal tights and some sort of water proof pants or something. I should have brought along my neoprene booties but of course rain is the last thing you think about for Christmas day; I mean c'mon, whatever happened to a white Christmas?
When I got home numb legs and all I jumped in the shower threw the clothes in the wash and learned how to prepare and cook a turkey. My folkshave started getting their turkeys from a local fresh turkey farm and they really have been coming out nice. I feel confident that if necessary I could prepare a full Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, homemade gravey and whatever else is necessary for my family. We'll see how much I remember next year when they ask for my help with dinner again.
No comments:
Post a Comment