Just Riding Along; A Brisk Walk in the Park

Late Saturday morning I was graciously afforded a window of opportunity in which I intended to play in the fresh snow with my bike. The SS was locked inside my car, which was buried under a Mazda sized snowbank. Fail.

With precious limited time, I had no intentions of digging it out. I'll save that task for Monday morning because I like to procrastinate before heading to my office. I pulled the Salsa down from it's perch above the workbench and cannibalized some bits to make it rideable once again.

(Muddied and incomplete... the lesser of two evils I guess.)

Rolling from the parking lot, there were was evidence of a few riders before me but I remained hopeful that I'd be able to make some fresh tracks. The scenery is typically censored by the darkness of night or the blur of tunnel vision. This morning my ride was unusually scenic... a welcome change.

(Gratuitous pics of our snow covered wedding venue.)

The usual scenery was passing by slowly enough to look around once in a while. I found no evidence of life on some of the more obscure, less ridden trails. The snow was a little crunchy, but mostly rideable. The climbs were a redline effort at roughly half a mile an hour.

(Score with some virgin snow)

Toward the end of the ride, my bike started acting up a bit. There was an occasional - but recognizable - pop coming from the drivetrain. The DT Swiss hubs tend to skip a tooth once in a while under load. No big deal. It happens once a ride, maybe. After a few times, I was starting to get nervous. Then on a false flat, the hub didn't engage. I tried once more and after a few yards, it happened again.

Hoofing it.

Disgusted, I dismounted my bike and started to fiddle with it like I was actually going to fix it trailside in the snow. In a superb effort to diagnose and remedy the problem, I turned the crank arm a few times and watched the wheel spin. Then, I made a rooster tail as I lowered the wheel into the snow. That was cool... So I did it again. The second time was much less entertaining, so I started walking. Sweaty and frustrated from my wrenching efforts, my comfort level was declining rapidly. Walking swiftly, wasn't swift enough. I started to run. When I'm just running , a snowy run is one of the few times that I find joy in it. Running while pushing a lame bicycle through the snow while cold and wet, however, is definitely not enjoyable at all.

Meh.

Knives and Guns

I've been bailing most of the Wednesday nights this winter. I've had my reasons; sometimes the rain calls it, sometimes I've got things to take care of, sometimes I have no good reason whatsoever. Whatever they've been, its a big smelly pile and now and I feel like my fitness is in a bad spot. The last couple times that I've been out on Wednesday, I've found myself coming unglued way too early and paying the price for my lackadasical training regimen. I can hear the alarm going off, but I just want to hit the snooze button again. It's an ugly wake up call and now I find myself looking down the barrel of a rapidly approaching race season. I have to admit... my knees are knocking at the prospect of bringing knives to the line in April.

Cold Rides and Wet Feet

French Creek in between relaxation periods on Sunday. The trails were cold and crunchy. Most of the wet spots were frozen solid and only the running water remained. Last week we were remarking how warm it was... this is some crazy weather we're having.

All those forced dismounts have paid dividends... She looks well balanced as she avoided the freezing cold water. A few minutes later, we rode the deep crossing. Wet feet at sub 20 degree temperatures means that a good ride, just ended early. Oh well... French Creek rarely disappoints.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Sunday night KPD (Soon to be S) and I collaborated with our Americanization of an old world staple; we cooked up some Spaghetti and Meatballs for her parents.
With some subtle refinements after the first run of noodles a couple weeks ago, she figured out what worked best with making, rolling, cutting and drying the pasta dough. She nailed it. I can't even begin to tell you how to do it, so you'll have to ask her.
While she was creating her noodles, I was making a pass at butchering the traditional Italian family dish with my first ever attempt at a good ole 'merican meatball (or thirty). With the essentials in hand from an earlier trip to The Twilight Zone, I got to work.

First, I beat up a couple eggs. No, I totally kicked their ass. After they were broken and vulnerable, I attacked again. I whipped them around - but not too much - till they were all mixed up and pedaling squares. Then, to add insult to injury I pelted the eggs with some bread crumbs, dried basil and oregano. After that, I crushed the shit out of some dried chiles with a couple pieces of marble and fired them into the mix. Oh, and I shredded a shit-ton of pecorino onto the top. After the finely shredded peco, the mess looked like some twisted awkward metaphor... It was like tarring and feathering an unborn chicken. weird.

Anyway, I swiftly dispatched the awkwardness and started folding it all together with the meat. I found that the best way to do this (well... this was my first time - I don't know if I did it right - but it sure did work for me) is to fold everything together with my hands. Squeezing, pulling, pushing, squishing; A device, just won't do. Get that shit together, people. I did add some olive oil to lube things up a bit and I think that was a good move to keep it moist.

As the bowl of meat was chillin' in the fridge (read: it needs to firm up), I diced up a bunch of garlic and a big ole shallot. The more the merrier in my opinion, but one of our dinner guests adamantly denies his in the closet love for garlic. Fine. I only used a little. I swear. I kept this stuff on deck while I heated up a little olive oil in a pan. I threw five balls into the oil on med+ heat. Aww, Hell no. I'm way too impatient and it'd take all damned night. I browned that batch and set them on a rack to drain. The next round, I dumped the remaining 25 meatballs into the pan. Much better. Roll those boys around to make sure they're nicely browned on all sides. If not, they look like shit, they taste like shit, and they make you shit. Seriously. Salmonella sucks.

Once all the balls were done I sauteed the garlic and shallots - carefully - in the same pan. If they burn, you fucked up. Period. You can't used anything in that pan if the garlic turns black. After a few minutes the shallots turned to that translucenty look and all was well. I poured in some leftover red to cool things down and then added a big ass can of tomato sauce to simmer for a few minutes. That's pretty much it for the sauce.I poured my sauce all over the meatballs in a Pyrex dish, covered it and threw it into the oven at 375°. I'm sure any "real" chef will all tell you to keep simmering in the same pot or pan... Whatever. This is my recipe and I like to make things up as I go. Especially when I've planned poorly and my panhood is inadequate. I couldn't fit everything into what I was using so there so I had to improvise. Also, I didn't want to trigger a pandemic (thanks for the entertainment Gwyneth, but your Contagion is not welcome here), so I wanted to be absolutely sure that the meat - the pork in particular - was fully cooked.

Here's the rough recipe for about 30 balls... and yes, size does matter. My balls are about the size of a 12 tooth cog:
2 eggs
1lb ground beef
1lb spicy Italian sausage w/o casing
some dried basil
some dried oregano
dried chiles or red pepper flakes to taste
a cup or so bread crumbs
1/4c olive oil
a shitload - easily a cup - of finely planed pecorino. It was light and feathery, not dense like canned Parmesan.

In the end, my charade worked out surprisingly well. Everything plated up great with some fresh basil and grated cheese. How my recipes come together so well despite my blatant disregard for the "right" way baffles me sometimes. Other times, I'll just grin and graciously accept the victory. I find it very satisfying to cook real food from scratch and I love to feed my family and friends. What's more? When cooking for ourselves, we have complete control of the nourishment that goes into our bodies and we can minimze the bullshit in our diets without much effort. That's a few checks in the win column.

Friday night KPD (soon to be S) and got ourselves ready and went out for dinner and drinks at one of our favorite spots. We wore our coats, but really didn't need 'em. It was 50° and holding. What's that about? A little foreshadowing I guess...

WTS? 60 degrees and clear skies?

Saturday morning, we awoke to Beady-eyed Chris Sowers giggling at his own warm weather jokes. 45° to start the day. I opened the garage to warm it up in there, spending some to prep the singles... cleaning, lubing, tweaking. By about 10:30, we were ready to roll south for our longest ride of the year.

The trails were decent... a little more moist than would be ideal, but not bad. Just slick enough in some corners to make things interesting. While out on our tour, the temps soared over 60°. Sixty degrees. In January. I sound like a broken record; I keep saying "I can't believe it's so warm..." I feel like I say this every ride.

I wonder if we'll just keep these warm days coming? I wonder when the winter's gonna hit? I wonder if mother nature is pissed? I wonder.