Happy New Year, 2016

Some people, those we tend to cut a little slack because the don't know any better, might consider it a belated greeting but, I mean the New Year can not really start until the first ride, am I right? So, twenty-four hours after the calendar said it was, I finally made the start of the New Year a reality.

Two weeks it has been since I last spun the cranks, which turn the chain, which spin the wheels, adding Life to life. First, pre-Christmas preparations and festivities and then, for the past week, this awful flu thingy have kept me less than optimally mobile. Finally, this morning I reached a point where I knew one of three things would happen by riding: 1. Nothing, and this ridiculously slow recovery would continue at the same stodgy pace, 2. Relapse, or 3. The effort would finally boot the bug from my system.

Too early to tell yet which result I will get but, which ever way things go, I could not have asked for a more spectacular day to start the year - crisp and clear, with just some lazy high clouds painting tracks across the sky, mountains looking majestic, the lake serene. Someone was dogging my wheels as I rolled through the Jungle, splashed through the stream; when I hopped up the curb to begin that stretch along Puddingstone, the shadow rider encouraged an increase in speed along the flowing line beneath the oaks, more curb hops, and finally the log drop to the dam. After that, a divergence of paths, a slower more relaxed pace, an easy climb of Fatt Hill, loop around Sailboat Cove where fisherfolk, half-submerged, sought an elusive catch, returned a few quack-salutes to the fowl armada floating close to shore and, at a mere ten miles, called the morning a success.

Got a few "new things" planned here at the blog for the New Year - a ride or two for later in the Spring or Summer, a possibility of going to NAHBS in Sacramento, an increase in "local" cycling coverage, and as ever the races which start up immediately - next weekend for both road and mountain. Looking forward to what the year has in store, hope you are too.