Aside from commuting yesterday, I haven’t ridden since last week. Heck, I didn’t do any rides outside of commuting last week, either. Sometime late in the week, I pulled a muscle in my leg, or something. I’m not sure what it is, it’s not too bad, but I have been trying to stay off it.

Then I got sick. I could feel it coming on last night, so I took a bunch of meds before bed. I woke up still feeling crummy, but not as bad. I still have a sore throat. Not sure what’s going on, but I don’t like it.

So, I guess I’m taking it easy for the time being.  I found time to work on some music over the weekend, which was enjoyable at times, but overall it was frustrating. I ran into a bunch of boring technical problems. I managed to get a few things accomplished, but until I have all my equipment set up, it’ll be difficult.

I have missed riding, but I’m also enjoying a bit of a break. Hopefully I can get out soon.

Cycling

It’s been an interesting year, so far. I’ve ridden a few centuries, and even completed the 160-mile Ride Across INdiana. I’ve ridden faster, and covered much greater distances, than ever before. All of this leads me to ask: what now?

I’ve given some thought to pursuing even longer distance rides, either through Randonneuring or other channels. And I have to admit, longer distances do sound appealing. For a while it felt like I was trying to see just how far I could go (literally).

But, the thing that I didn’t really consider, going into the longer rides, is that not only do the long events themselves take up a huge chunk of time, the training it takes to be able to do them is even more time-consuming.  It seems a few of the more hardcore local riders ride centuries on at least a weekly basis, if not more. For me, I think that would be physically doable, but it would leave me drained all the time, and I wouldn’t have time to spend with my beautiful wife, or doing anything else. I also think it would cease to be fun, if I approached riding that way.

After RAIN, I debated finding a double century or something else to build up to. But instead I found my riding tapering off a bit. Aside from commuting, I’ve been doing less riding during the week, and my weekend rides have mostly been shorter. And you know what? I’m having a blast!

Ultimately, cycling is a hobby. I’m glad I focused on it enough to do RAIN, but I need to find some balance. I need to spend more time with my beautiful wife, and our dog, and the rest of my family. And I also want to spend time on my other hobbies … especially writing music.

Music

You might ask, “What music?” I originally started this blog to chronicle my music-writing. I used to make electronic music, on a regular basis. Cycling just took over, and I haven’t written any music, or written about music, for quite a while. I miss it, and I’m going to start making music again. If you want to check out my music, listen to the album I made back in 2006, Elements (it’s free). There’s more where that came, which I will find a good way to share soon.

What does this mean?

Cycling-wise, I still intend to ride a lot, and probably even do centuries on a semi-regular basis. For right now, at least, I have no intention of pursing anything much longer than that, unless it takes the form of a multi-day tour. I’m not really scaling back my cycling much, except to return it to normal levels before I started training for RAIN.

And hopefully, you’ll see some new music from me soon. You might also see some music-related posts popping up around here. If they don’t interest you, ignore them. Or, you can always read only my bicycling posts, if you prefer.

I’ll leave you to ponder this hilarity: Ambient Sequencer AS-606.

Sarah and I went up to Green Bay, Wisconsin this weekend for the wedding of a couple of friends from college. We drove up to Chicago last Thursday night after I got off work to stay at another friend’s place there, and give them a ride to Green Bay.

Now, there’s a saying that Chicago has two seasons: winter and construction. And there’s a lot of truth to it. Last time we were there, it was winter and the high temperature was hovering around 0 degrees. This time, the drive up there, which is usually about 4 1/2 hours, took over six hours. We hit major construction and traffic on the way there. In fact, every leg of our trip was plagued with traffic jams. The drive back from Green Bay, which was supposed to be about 7 1/2 hours, took more like 10 1/2 hours. Yikes!

I’ve lived in Chicago before, and I have a lot of fond memories there — but this trip served as a reminder of just how much I prefer living in a smaller town. A place where parking isn’t an issue and the roads aren’t packed with vehicles all the time. A town that sleeps. And, a place where getting out of the city doesn’t involve driving for an hour or more. I have re-adapted to a much slower-packed lifestyle, and I love it. During some more frustrating moments, I found myself thinking of the Fred Neil song “Badi-Da:”

I get so tired
Hanging round this town
Oh this old city life
Sure brings a fella down

ba da da da da da
ba da da da da da da
ba da da da da da
ba da da

I sure get tired
Trying to sleep at night
Oh these old city lights
They keep on burning bright

ba da da da da da
ba da da da da da da
ba da da da da da
ba da da

I get so tired
Hanging round this town
Oh this old city life
Sure brings a fella down

ba da da da da da
ba da da da da da da
ba da da da da da
ba da da

On a positive note, Chicago was absolutely crawling with bicycles. I don’t remember seeing nearly as many bicycles when I lived there a few years ago. Was I not paying attention, or has bicycling exploded in popularity in Chicago in the past few years? Even late at night, we saw tons of cyclists.

It seemed like, based on what I saw, Chicago is probably a good place to ride, if you can somehow stay safe amongst all the insane drivers (and there are a lot of them).

I wish I had something to say about Green Bay, but we saw very little of it since we spent almost all of our time on wedding-related activities. It seemed like a nice city, much smaller than Chicago but big enough that it seems to have a lot going on.

The wedding, of course, was fantastic. This couple was the first of my close friends from college to get married, and I couldn’t be happier for them. Sarah and I will be next, in just over a month!