Long ride

It was chad's idea a while back to ride together before his travel began. And today was an open day. The first full day of me chillin at the pad with the dog for a bit. Yeah just me.

Cooking what ever I want. Inventing stuff (like tonight) aka recipes.

It is getting somewhat to the point where I've hit that confidence level in my cooking that is pretty neat. Pair up some ingredients, and make it work. Playing off simple standards but making them my way.

I was down right famished after the ride. It was a coffee fueled 3.5 hour ride time ride. 3/4 of a bottle of water was consumed my me over the whole ride. But then it was pretty god damn cold, and I hydrated pretty well through the night and before I left at 8:19am. Didn't get home until 1:42pm.

We spend about 30 minutes at Seven Stars Bakery firs waiting for folks to show and then waiting for the sun to work some magic.

The reports of the temperature ranged from 15-20 degrees F and the wind was a steady 20 mph gusting to 30 at the start of the ride. And we were riding right into the teeth of the wind.

So, we waited a bit. Caught up and then rolled out.

This would be the first test of the LG 0 Ergo Grips. And I'll say this, my feet were cool at times but not once from the time I left the house until I got back were my feet ever cold. Not once. And i was just wearing the boots and a pair of swiftwick wool compression socks I had gotten for Christmas (on my feet that is).

Oh and a Balaclava makes your winter kit sort of like a Stillsuit for heat. My hands were pretty much sweating the whole time and my core was right toasty. On many of the hills and esp Tower Hill Road I had to unzip the jacket to keep from over heating a bit.

It was cold though. Chad and Brent killed me and burke and hans on the hills, but it felt good. Legs were surprisingly good considering they were under a ton of bundles, and that i was riding on coffee and not other fuels (fueled until we started climbing SalesHill/Iron something at 146 - the light at Anchor Subaru). Started feeling the reserves get low. At some point we waited for Burke and I busted out a Cocoa Mole Larabar.

The ride was great. It was dry, only a few patches of ice. But that ride home after Chad and I stopped back into Seven Stars to have a bit of a pastry and yet another coffee (for me) was actually pretty tough. The legs were dead and the wind had swung around from being a dead on my nose headwind when I rode in at 8:30ish to blowing in my ear hole the whole damn way home.

Dog is sleeping and I'm not far off.

Time to sign off, clean up a few things and sleep...

yes

i had some more ice cream tonight... it is pretty damn yummy stuff.

heddwch
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oh and dinner was one that i wanted to just keep eating:
pulling from a status update somewhere else:

Dinner tonight:
felt like soup so I made a whitefish, cavolo nero, cannellini beans, hannah yam, mirepoix, crimini mushrooms. Touch of rosemary and thyme and some red pepper for heat.
Serving it with some ciabatta bread.

I nailed it, if I do say so myself. The fish might be slightly overcooked when I re-heat it for lunch but, ya know? It was perfect tonight and that's what counts (I think). Not too brothy, pretty hearty and yummy.

I won't bore anyone here with how to make it... it was just a soup.