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Last week was a bit of an odd one for me, well not so much me as it was for a friend of mine who received some potentially horrible news. It ended up being almost the best case scenario but that was not revealed until way deep into the week. Since there was a lot of unknown for most of the week I had decided to skip the normal weekend activities so that I could be there if it came to that, thankfully it did not. Plans were still kept to hang out on Saturday so instead of the usual ride I stuck closer to home and did a solo gravel ride in the morning before the meetup.


Saturday ended up being kind of a chilly, windy, overcast and dreary day but riding still seemed better than sitting on the couch. Chased these two turkeys along the fence line for about a quarter mile before they figured out to cross the road since they couldn't get through the fence. Chase being a relative term actually since I was just minding my own business and stayed on the road but they thought I was chasing them.




It had been a while since I had ridden up north and I almost forgot how hilly it can get up here, taking the Pugsley on a windy day probably wasn't the best choice for such terrain. As they say what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger and since I didn't die I therefore must be stronger.


It was meant to be a pretty slow roll anyway so I guess bike choice didn't make that much of a difference. Not needing to share the bridge beer was nice, don't get me wrong sharing is caring but sometimes gluttony has it's place also.




Saturday afternoon we whipped up some steak and chicken fajitas and ate ourselves silly, such a great dish and super simple to make.

Did some single track on Sunday and then again on Monday for the first Monday Night Ride of the season. I'm glad to see the rides continuing on Mondays despite the relocation of the the shop that used to put them on, riding with a group is always a bit more motivating than soloing it all the time. Not much for pictures on the single track riding but with the new GoPro there is video and if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be a few million. Work smarter not harder I guess, any who, here are the videos from the weekend. Hope you enjoy them.


Sunday Gravel.


Saturday Single Track.


Monday Single Track.

 

Simmering Through Winter

While we likely aren't going to break any records in Nebraska for total snow fall or coldest winter on record, we have certainly had our fair share of both recently. More so than the amount of snow it's been the timing of the snow and cold that has been cumbersome. It seems like the last 3-4 storms have rolled in right around Thursday or Friday and continued into Saturday afternoon and sometimes even into Sunday making for a less than enjoyable weekend for getting out of the house even to go the store, let alone riding a bicycle. Now if you're one of those conspiracy types I suppose all this could be explained away as the gubmint geoengineering the weather to keep us isolated in our homes but I personally just think it's been a crappy winter. We were due and I personally have my doubts that our government could pull off geoengineering the weather, lately they can't seem to be able to agree on much of anything. I think we'd need to out source something like that.... wait, it does feel like Siberia.... hmmmmmmmm. Nuting to see here, comrade. 


Saturday we got dumped on again with a few inches to go along with the snow we still have lingering around from the last snow that dropped several inches on us. I shoveled the drive and hoped we were done but it wasn't to be and we got a dusting Saturday into Sunday morning as the cherry on top of cruddy weekend snow. As a bonus we got bone chilling temps to go along with the white stuff this time around. I skipped leaving the house much on Saturday but got a bit of cabin fever on Sunday so ventured over to the local single track for a decent 6 mile ride, in 2° weather. What's worse is that those frigid temps are planning on sticking around for a week or so, like an unwanted aunt who suddenly pops over uninvited.


2° is nothing to balk about as far as being cold but with the right gear it is definitely a temperature you can ride in if you ride smart and use a fair amount of caution. I would probably make sure you're not going out for hours at a time, don't get too far from someplace warm if things start going sideways and by all means let someone knows where you'll be and about how long you plan to be gone. I know that sounds a lot like checking in with ma and pa like you had to do in your youth, but things get iffy real quick in that temperature range and it's a good idea to at least have someone out there that would get concerned if they didn't hear from you and know where to go to find you. 

I bought this Giro Discord helmet a few years back for winter riding but I guess I tend to run a bit warmer than your average bear. (Is it just me or does it look a bit like the Emu on the Liberty Mutual insurance commercials sitting on the saddle?) Every time I wear the helmet I have ended up sweating, profusely. Saturday was no exception, I had sweat dripping off the font of it even with the vents fully opened, I had to stop and take it off multiple times to wring the sweat out of the brow band. With all that sweat dripping everywhere it started to fall on the top of my Cobrafists leaving ice to buildup on the pogies. That did not seem ideal so I actually secured the helmet to my Osprey pack on the second lap and just used a smart wool thin beanie... yes, I know that not wearing a helmet will get you the wrath of the helmet police and in general I agree that having a helmet will help in most cases buuuuuuttttt sweat and cold weather is maybe a little bit more of an immediate threat to your well being in below freezing temps. Sweating is a sure fire way to get cold, I know that might not make much since to most people but that sweat forms ice as it moves away from your core and ice on the outside of your clothes will eventually rob you of all your warmth. Anyway I did the second lap with a beanie and called it a day, even though it was cold the sun came out and I swear that the track I'd worn in on the first lap started getting soft and squirmy by the end of the second lap.


The water didn't fare as well, nothing like sucking water out of an icy bunghole on the side of a snowy trail.


So if it's been cold, snowy and miserable... what have you been doing? Well, I am glad you asked.

Not at all bike related but I did pick this bad boy up recently and while it's not exactly like new bike day, I am pretty psyched. A little over a year ago I started getting more into cooking at home, mostly it was simple things that I'd made before or things that didn't seem to complicated. The idea was to try to pick up a skill that wasn't related to cycling and one that I could share with my non cycling friends, yes I do have some of those if you can believe it. As time has gone on and the pandemic made going out almost impossible, I started experimenting a bit more and moving out of my comfort zone and started cooking things that I liked to order when going out but had never cooked myself. I am a huge fan of cast iron and with this new addition I might not have to use anything else for most things I cook since I already have multiple cast iron skillets/frying pans to compliment this enameled cast iron Dutch oven. One of the first things I worked on was perfecting a Sloppy Joe that wasn't from a can and that didn't have that oddly sweet taste to it like you'll usually get from a Sloppy Joe "mix". I prefer my Sloppies to be less sweet and more savory, while there might be need for further testing and tweaking I think I might have this one almost right where I want it. Sorry no pictures of the Joe since I initially wasn't planning on blogging about cooking when I started this whole thing.


Pork Chop with a white wine, garlic cream sauce was delicious.

 


Craw-fish Etouffee was probably one of the things that was the most out of my comfort zone but I think it turned out pretty good. Room for improvement for sure but it was tasty and that's part of what this journey is all about, making tasty dishes, learning new skills and having fun.

 


Stuffed Peppers have been fun to make also and a pretty big hit with those I've cooked them for, so that is a bonus. I've cooked a few other things, some of them multiple times but I won't unload all of those here at this time. With that said, I might from time to time share a few of the things that I make that I feel turned out really well and maybe even a few of the things that failed just to equal things out. If you enjoy that kind of thing then you're in luck, if you don't, well you're going to have to gloss over them when they happen.

 

There's Mischief And Mayhem And Songs To Be Sung

As we sit a mere two days away from Christmas, I am feeling a bit melancholy. I know there are the Grinches of the world who cannot stand anything joyful or triumphant and if they happen to be both, well they lose their damn minds. I happen to love Christmas and the Christmas/New Year season and I'm not ready to say goodbye to it just quite yet. One of my favorite things to do is to explore the holiday lights and the bicycle seems like the perfect conveyance to do that. I kicked off the holiday lights ride season a couple of weeks ago when temps were still hovering around the 60° range, first up was a ride down Larimore street right over here in my hood. But since the night was so nice at that time, a few of us did a lap or so on the single track first.



After the single track we met up with a few other folks at the building formerly known as Bike Masters to head over to Larimore Ave and the lights displays.







I love the Larimore Ave lights display, it didn't seem as done up this year as it has been in years past but I suppose in this whacky year that is to be expected. There are lot of reasons for people to not be as jolly as they might normally be during the holidays. Between the four rides I literally have hundreds of photos so there is no way I'd be able to show them all or even half of them without this blog post turning into a novella, so what you're seeing is a small sampling of what we saw.



After our fill of lights we also scooted over to Standing Bear lake and scurried across the new floating bridge, it's dark out there at night. Not sure what they plan to do with the bridge during winter, I suspect they will just leave it in the lake but the walking surface seemed to be some kind of plastic and it was already getting slick with just a little bit of lake condensation on it. Add some snow and ice and it's likely going to be slicker than walrus poo on an iceberg.










Up next was a little 11 mile loop our of Aksarben Village put on by the Limestoners group. Mostly through the Happy Hollow area of Omaha where fences make good neighbors and the smell of old money... and old... and money lingers in the air but the lights were pretty impressive.





We did end at Liv Lounge complete with fire pit, a beautiful tree and a Covid compliant zebra. Not the worst way to end a chilly lights ride.



Saturday was the annual Holiday Lights Ride for Cycle Works. Channel 8 showed up so I thought we might make the news but since I haven't seen it come out yet, I guess we are laying on the cutting room floor somewhere.







As of Thursday the DHMs in place in Lincoln had closed down, or made them do take out only, most of the places we normally would stop at so we didn't have anything planned as far as stops went. Then the Hub Cafe reached out to us and let us know that they had just opened a large outdoor area with heaters. We of course jumped at the opportunity to not only have a place to stop for a quick bite or refreshment but it was also a way to support a great local business. As it turned out most of the real restrictive DHMs were lifted Friday afternoon but with the ride being the next day there wasn't much we could do to reroute things for other stops so it was nice to have the Hub.

















With no indoor stops planned, we grabbed the interactive map from Phillip's Lincoln Lights and plotted out a much longer route than we have done traditionally. Might have to figure out how to make this extended ride an option going forward, it was a ton of fun.






While not lights at all, this was probably my favorite display. Just a bunch of mannequins having a friendly snowball fight. The real question is what do they do with them when it's not Christmas time, are they like just randomly placed throughout the house, do they have a vacation storage shed? I feel like I need the back story.



This display was something else too, complete with Jesus in a fish tank. Aqua-Jesus!








The final ride was the Bike De'Lights which was a short 5 mile loop but it had some really spectacular light displays. Might still sneak in a few lights here and there but I fear that the holiday lights rides have ceased for the season. There's always next year and it's gotta be a better year than 2020 has been, right?

Merry Christmas everyone!