WeatherChannel.com and Steaming Piles of Horse Dung Suck

Yesterday was my first ride this week because of having two rest days in this weeks schedule. I was really itching to get back on the bike even though it was only an easy 30 minute spin session. The physical act of riding was uneventful so I won’t talk about that. I would like to talk about weatherchannel.com, horses and group-ride Wednesday.

I use a computer for almost everything and that includes checking the weather before riding and WeatherChannel.com has been my site of choice. I like to know if I could potentially get rained on (even though I’m not manly enough to ride in the rain), how hot it is, and what the wind is doing. I like their site for the most part but their ability to accurately indicate wind direction and speed sucks. The last several rides I’ve been on the actual wind direction/speed hasn’t even been close to what’s been displayed online. With Internet technology the way it is today, how hard is it to accurately reflect wind direction and speed online? If we can create an opera using Twitter how hard is it connect an anemometer (that’s techie for wind bird (which is Navy for the thing that tells you wind speed and direction)) to a computer and have it update wind direction/speed in real time so that surface area challenged cyclists like myself can plan our rides? Obviously it’s too hard to do.

White Rock Trail here in Dallas is a multi-use trail and you’ll see cyclists, runners, walkers, and roller-bladders on it all the time. The far northern section of the trail also sees use by horseback riders but they stay off to the side of the trail for the most part. Recently though, and yesterday was a prime example, these equestrian wannabees have decided they’re going to ride Mr. Ed on the trail and let him dump a huge pile of steaming crap down a 20 foot section of trail. Come on. At least have the common courtesy to get off the trail before letting your horse clog the trail for the rest of us. Before you know it your leisurely ride has turned into a full-blown obstacle course with dirty wheels and copious amounts of crap-stink as your reward for nailing a pile/log of horse dung. That’s awesomeness you can’t buy.

Yesterday was also Poseur and Fred day out at the trail. The cyclists were out in full force with groups of 2-10 all over the place. Kinda like packs of roving dogs. I’m guessing quite a few groups get together for group rides on Wednesday. Whatever the case, I saw the spectrum of cycling attire. There were more dudes wearing plain white tshirts than I’ve ever seen. No idea what the deal was but they were everywhere. I can see the benefits of wearing the white tshirt: white always looks cool, white feels cool, and the cost of a plain white tshirt is hundreds less than a snazzy cycling jersey (but not as cool). You would think wearing a white tshirt would be a huge cycling fashion faupax but it appears to be a style I’ve missed out on. Maybe it’s some kind of 70′s Happy Days statement because nobody was as cool as ‘The Fonze‘.

With it being group-ride Wednesday, I also saw all the poseurs dressed to kill in full team kits on their racer bikes. The really cool ones were the dudes sporting full kit and time trial bikes. In one spot I saw a group of no less than six dudes flying in paceline formation while sporting full kits and TT bikes. I’ll admit that I was blown away by their awesomeness. I even saw a group of four ladies doing the same thing about 10 minutes later. Which reminds me of the chick I saw last Saturday down on the trail. She was riding a sweet looking pink Tri bike. Being a real dude I’m OK with pink and even have a couple of pink shirts but I could never ride a pink bike. This girl though rode it hard which is kinda like cool if you think about it. The pinkness tempts you to think or say something about it. I bet she hopes you do because when you blows past you she’ll yell, “Go get your own pink bike you girlie man!” Heck, most of the girls I see down at the trail would own me any day of the week on a bike.

What did I wear yesterday? I walked the line between Fred-dom and Poseur-like. You could call it ‘Freseur’ (not to be confused with Friseur). That means I combined the qualities of both into the total package of manly (or non-manly) cycling. I started with simple black bibs followed with a low quality, all-white, jersey. Nothing like the contrast of black and white in cycling fashion. After getting my black cycling shoes on I remembered that I had new gloves for today. And they were…black. I’m not sure I could have planned it any better. I looked like something out of an epic old school cycling mag or a model in a White House | Black Market catalog. Then I remembered that I actually look like Jabba The Hutt while dressed in spandex and barely stifled a laugh before donning my brain pan and shoving off.