The first day of Spring! And I can focus on losing 15 pounds of winter fat (no excuses; I know better).

I saddled up Kash on Wednesday to drop him off at the Local Bike Shop for the annual tune-up. I could do it myself but (a) our small-town LBS’s need all the financial support they can get, and (b) I’ve got zero mechanical skills. The family knows by now to go to The Bride when it’s time to assemble anything more complicated than a spork.

So I’m breezing along down Koontz towards the Bike Habitat and the front tire goes flat. Guess who doesn’t have his tire-changing gear? It was a nice walk home.

This afternoon, Dollar and I are cruising down Fifth Street and the left pedal comes apart (WTH). The Bride is in Reno. Dropped off Dollar at the Bike Smith and it was a nice walk home.

I got an old Giant with flat tires in the garage that was bought years ago for commuting. Does it break the curse or do bad things happen in threes? I’ll let you know.

[Edit: I got a few miles in on the Giant on Monday (3/22/10). It’s a nice ride but there’s no way to look cool on it.]

The first outside ride of the year (#dontjudgeme) deserves a blog entry, I suppose, but there’s nothing to write about. I flattened my tires while trying to pump them up (#dontjudgeme), derailed a chain going uphill (#dontjudgeme) and infuriated the neighbor’s dogs with my bright alabaster legs (#sexywhitegeek). Otherwise, it was a good ride for a furlough day.

This is a rattlesnake. He is a pit viper.

He is vicious. He is ferocious.

He is about to attack.

He is about the size of a number two pencil.

Maybe.

I call him “Kermit”.

The Bride and I did a dayhike up the old V&T trail on what may be one of the last warm days of the year. If you live in the area and want a long walk in a desert setting close to town, this is the trail for you. We saw all sorts of small lizards, birds, bugs and Kermit. What was odd about him (her?) was he had tiny black rattles where I always thought they were brown.

I jest but it would have ruined our day if he had taken a bite out of us, especially since urban legend says the venom is more potent in the little snakes. Dress accordingly when you head up there.

Edit: I’ve been told that Kermit is probably a Great Basin rattler or a subspecies of a Western Rattler - now y’all can sleep better tonight.

(The Bride took a lot more pix on our hike and rumor has it she’s trying to post them to her blog.)

The title of this post is misleading because after logging over 300 miles in July, I didn’t break 200 miles in August. The reason was a bunch of little things (the flu didn’t help) and I never had the biking mojo except for when I touched the four counties. On the other hand, I lost five pounds because I stuck to the diet and walked almost every day.

I still have a ways to go to average physical fitness but I weigh less now than I did when I left the Air Force almost 18 years ago. Again, there are no secrets, books, drugs, fads or shortcuts being used here other than I took responsibility and got off my butt.

And Aunt Lily loves the graphs so here’s a snapshot from my food log. The green line is my daily limit, the red line are calories consumed in a day, and the orange line equals calories consumed minus calories burned.

Folks with access to the social networks know that I did a 16-miler last night and as my GPS was powerless:

EB on Fifth Street
SB and EB on Carson River Road
NB on Deer Run Road
WB on Hwy 50 and College Parkway
SB on Roop and Mountain

A couple of things stood out:

This route has its fair share of Carson City hills that have wiped me out in the past, especially the climb on the east side of the bridge, but not last night. I didn’t hit the granny gears once, which explains why my average speed was about 14 MPH for the entire trip (warp speed for me).

The last three or four miles were the flattest and I got a second wind, so I flew through the streets (and a few of those red octagonal “Yield” signs). It felt really good to be outside and working the legs. The Bride did not appreciate the sweaty and bike-greasy hug when I got home, though.

My big ride will be Sunday and I haven’t decided if it’ll be up to Virginia City or down from Reno. Dawn rides on Sunday are the best because there will be no traffic. I’m leaning towards VC because of Bike Carson’s recent adventure. Maybe I’ll hear a good ghost story.

Stats:
16.06 miles
1 hour 8 minutes
1,013 calories burned