Two days in a row

on the bike. Wow.

no not really. but i did get to do something new. I broke down and bought new booties. You know the ones you are using are old when there isn't an image on Google image search within the first 5 minutes of searching. Granted they are pre-1990 iirc. They were old old old stock when I bought them working in a shop. The soles are wearing out and the velcro is coming unstitched a bit and well they are a bitch to put on and pretty much too hot for most conditions.

AT REI they had a set of Sugoi Firewall Booties on sale. So before buying them I grabbed a 46 PI mtb display shoe and slipped them in. Hmm. Plenty of room and these soles and uppers are way beefier than my Sidi or Specialized mt shoes. Good sale and at the store they had an additional 15% off clearance items. Heck. Can't go wrong, can i? These are nice. Reflective stuff on them (unlike the purple booties which only draw attention in daylight and at that the attention is "dude those are sooooo 1980s") and they have all the fancy wind and water proof words on the label.

So this morning. 24°F out there i slip on my thinnest smartwool socks (they are wicked thin, summer weight actually) and the Sidi mt shoes (still with big toe spikes) and then these booties. Yesterday with temps at 38°F the snow was wet and sticky and there was standing water on the roads. Today the snow was crunchy and the roads dry and salty and there was a 10 mph headwind. My feet were only about as cold as they were yesterday, but they weren't wet, and i really should have had thicker socks on. Toes were just cold not numb.

I am happy that they fit well over my 47s... Next time I am going to try them with slightly thicker socks. Maybe the Blaze Defeet ones.

Seriously these old shimano booties of mine must have been made in the 80s.

And I do have a soft spot for buy cycling stuff at REI. When I sold my sailboard in H.S. so I could by a Mt Bike (to ride instead of running for cross country - bad knees - well really just no muscles and poor patella tracking leading to inflammation) I wanted a Novara. It was 1989. Sure not that long ago for some old crunchy masters, but i'd been riding borrowed or hand me down bikes for a long time. And never a mt bike. I wanted my own new one. The Novara was cool. I knew everything about it. Knew more about it than the sales guys. Well I had read everything about it, just not how it rode or anything. None of that mattered. I wanted that bike. So at the old original store there on capital hill i was stalking the bikes. I wanted that bike. I had the money for it. And the sales guy said to go next door. Velo Stores had this Raleigh Chill Technium bike on sale that was a killer deal. Much better deal than the Novara. It was an '88 close out model. Gooseneck stem. Anyway. I wound up buying the Chill (it was smushed in a car accident and I replaced it with a close out '89 model of the chill bought in Tacoma/Lakewood), I also wound up working at the Velo Store's Pine Street Pro shop. All because the guy in the bike area said I should go next door and take a look at the Chill.

So this ride in today. Mostly bare pavement where there was ice yesterday. But the places that were trampled down by skiers and walkers is still icy and snowy. Maybe we'll get some more melting or at least some sublimating today. Although I don't expect it to warm up enough to really have an impact. just hoping mostly for solar aided sublimation. If the path had been plowed... the surface would be clear today. Not covered in densely packed Icy snow. I could have used studded tires today but it wouldn't have helped much. And man is it slow going riding through the deep snow over the frozen grass and soil on the sides of the path.

I did something stupid last night. I stayed up to watch The Buckeyes try and not be total failures. Well they got really close to not sucking finally. But they let the big ten down by letting that receiver pop free into the end zone with time left on the clock. Stupid college football. I shoulda gone to bed instead. All well. That kasteel stuff wasn't too bad, similar in fact to the Newport '08, not as complex but smoother with a similar taste. My wife took a sip expecting beer and wondered what the hell she was drinking. Exclaimed "this isn't beer." Well we'll have to try a different bottle or go back to the Allagash Tripel.

I've got the Battenkill debate raging in my head. Do I or do I not. Step up to the plate and focus on it this year, sign up and just go do it, or skip it all together. I still sort of feel just like riding for fun and getting ready, truly ready, not like i've attacked the race in the past, I need to start pretty much now if I want to have a decent shot at sticking in the main pack to the end. Just not sure if I'm ready to make the commitment needed. And just that little bit of doubt is probably a good sign that I'm not ready to yet. Although, reflecting on the race, and those roads out there. It really is a pretty fucking awesome race, unique in every aspect and a rare chance to be on a long road race that has some distance w/o running the same loop more than once... ala Jamestown or Palmer or... most other 'road' races around New England. We'll see. Might just have to jump on the wait list for the hell of it. Or not.

heddwch
G