A combination of weather and motivation kept me off the bike until this morning.  In truth I missed only one decent day of riding, ostensibly blaming my tender sit bones for my lack of effort Wednesday.  Thursday and Friday the weather was not conducive to riding, though I saw at least one individual fighting his way up the pedestrian overpass in the heavy wet snow.  It did not look like he was having “fun”.  Unless you call losing a wrestling match to a bicycle fun.  It should be noted that The Cheater continued to ride despite the snow and the rain.  More evidence of his cheatinglyness I propose.

This morning’s ride was brought to you by an optimism heretofore unseen in 2012.  Sunday night, my BB Playbook predicted a decent morning with a gentle cross wind in the morning and likely a wee tail wind on the way home.  I finally serviced the Rescue bike, long overdue then packed my bag, laid out my clothes and hit the pillow with dreams of enthusiastic cycling.

So it was that I departed full of enthusiasm and clipless-borne trepidation.  The air was brisk frigid, considerably colder than the -2 various technologies were reporting and my eyes watered in protest.  While I love my Sidi Dominators, they are somewhat more drafty than my old runners.  My toes are glad to see the warm socks waiting at work.  Note to self – I need to make a sock heater for work.

Riding clipless…clipless – what a misleading term.  There may not be a clip, but there’s a cleat and that cleat is firmly locked to your pedal.  We even say that we’re “clipped in”.  My little clipless-driven tip-over has added an element of commitment to my ride.  Not in a positive, affirming fashion wherein I’m firmly dedicated to riding.  Rather a feeling of no choice when approaching steep climbs.  It’s great that I can stand on the pedals (and pedal) over almost any terrain now, but there’s a distinct lack of freedom lurking behind every long uphill slog.  I find it doubly strange that this concerns me when I wouldn’t ordinarily contemplate putting a foot down except in the most dire of climbs.

I’m still trying to find a comfortable position for my left cleat.  My quad starts to complain much earlier than the right and for the moment I’m blaming the cleat position.  Of course it’s equally probable that my left leg is doing more work but I’m finding that much harder to gauge.  As a tech nerd, I’d like to build a little force measuring tool into each crank lever but I can see where that would lead.  Soon I’d look like a cycling Borg with wires and gizmos everywhere, monitoring, measuring and checking everything instead of just riding (and enjoying) the darn thing.  Still…

That’s all secondary however.  My first two rides this year were…hard.  Mentally humiliating.  Hills that I faced with determination and motivation last season are winning.  The ‘fast’ sections of the path are no longer fast.   Aware of just how bad I am sucking against my own previous performance.  Though, as I write this I am reminded of my first ride alone on the (not very)SuperCycle.  I am not there now, so there’s that.

Cold, nervous about the pedals, unhappy with my previous performance.  All of this weighing as pedaled out of the driveway and into my world.  It didn’t take long before it started falling away.  Today was going to be different.

The cold soon disappeared into the background as I focused on my breathing.  Pe-dal cir-cles pe-dal cir-cles.  I found a rhythm that worked and stuck with it, shifting gears to keep the cadence up as the terrain ebbed and flowed underneath me.  There it is.  This is what I’ve been missing.  Pushing but not flailing.  Succeeding.  Climbing.  Grooving. Challenging and rewarding.  I smiled, in my head at least.  Outwardly it probably appeared that I was having a stroke.

I’m loving it again.  I know I’m slow and have some catching up to do.  I know I will have days of double headwinds and days with no gas in the tank but I just don’t care!  I’m an addict and I want more.

It looks like the snow is going to pay us a visit yet again tomorrow and possibly Wednesday though this being Calgary it’s equally probable that it will be +20 and sunny.  I’m hoping for the latter.  I want to ride!