March 16, 2011

If You Wanna Get to Heaven

IMG_6706
Friday Night

It never fails, for most of us in the Midwest there's a point in the winter where you're cursing yourself to be dumb enough to live here, and dumber still for insisting on riding your stupid bicycle all year round.

Yeah sure it's easy to play up the "that's what makes us hard and gives us character" angle or "this is what separates us from all the softies in Portland" bent, but after a while it gets to wear on you.

When we were down in Austin Mark$ter was proclaiming how he's done his time over the past 20 years and it's time to move onto somewhere warm. Someplace where you don't go through skinny-fat cycle every winter, somewhere where you can swim all year long and eat food outside....

Then there are days like today (Tuesday) when you get out of work at 5 and it's 40 fucking degrees. Only 40 degrees doesn't feel like 40 degrees. It feels like the hot breath of an angel bearing down on you and you shed your layers and show some leg skin for the first time in months and rejoice that it's actually going to still be light out at 7pm.

If you truly want to know heaven, you've got to first know hell.

IMG_6743
Tuesday Evening

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

i miss the hood but not the weather...

Mud said...

So happy I live in Mississippi for this exact reason... other than that... it sucks here.

But hey! At least the people are nice!

Unknown said...

living in the northeast, I check your blog to remind myself I don't have it all that bad. It's inspiring to see people riding through the winter. stay strong!

chitownJen said...

it was 48 in chicago yesterday and I busted out my shorts! The first warm day always feels like a heat wave!

Unknown said...

One day I wanna come ride a winter if y'all will put me up. The Stupor Bowl weekend would be the bomb. How does a dude who has never riden in temps anywhere near freezing prepare for snow? Ride in sand with ice water thrown on him? If you are ever out in OZ and want a challenging road or trail ride with some decent gradient, just let me know.

Jeff said...

no secret, you just got to do it.