Dreaming of a Life Less Ordinary

38+  Miles: 38.77 miles Elevation Gain: 1,893 ft Moving Time: 3:55 minutes Avg Speed: 9.9 mph Temperature: 91F Let’s just get the stats out of the way first.  All in all, it was a good ride, although, I do hate the average speed.  I felt like I was faster than that yesterday.  However, with some climbing and some heat issues, I probably wasn’t as fast as I wanted to be.   The scheduled called for 38 – 42 for the group ride.  I had every intention of getting closer to that 42 than the 38, but sometimes you have human moments when you are out riding the bike.  It was one of the first time I went out without having a planned route, I figured I knew just enough to piece it together are I went.  I knew I was going to start by heading to Ellettsville.  Then I figured I could cut across campus and get in 5 miles, and by the time I got back home, I would be at about 40 if not a little bit more.   I wa...

  8/17/2024 The Power of Words   Friday the 16 th  was just another Friday.  It started off like so many days lately I got up later than I expected after I started my workday at 6 a.m. checking email seeing if anyone needed anything in EMEA.  There were no emails.  I sent one to myself just to make sure that my email was working.  It has been glitchy ever since my quarterly password change and since I resigned up for my personal Office 365, the personal and work emails had been confused on which accounts to login where, but we were over that hump.  The test email arrived.  No one needed me and I was content with that, so I pulled the sheets over my head and rolled away from the fan and drifted back to sleep.  That sleep is never really the best sleep, the mind has already started to wake, and it is running around and getting ready to go.  Dreams often fade in and out in this time and if i...

Cool Outside – Stronger Me!   Yesterday was one of my best rides in Bloomington.  I just felt strong!  Strong is a good way to feel when you are out riding.  I think a lot of it had to do with cooler temperatures settling in the Midwest over the last three or four days and thank the light it looks like they might hold for at least another week.  35 miles, 3 hours and seven minutes and 1,555 ft gained, and I felt good.  Real, good!  I think I already said that once before.  As I told Coach on Training Peaks after the ride “Felt great today.  Weather was cool and I felt strong.  I was riding a lot more upfront today.”  I over shot my target by about 10 miles, I was supposed to ride 25 miles, but what can I say, I got bored and wanted to get out and start riding yesterday, so I coned Kona and headed out.  Kona has some serious bad wounds on her back feet.  They have been like that since late May or early June.  M...

Me Billy b, me Hot   My own out and back… Hello friends - apologies for being gone so long.  It is funny how we can get sucked into our own little worlds and one day it is June 3rd and you have the entire summer ahead of you and boom next think you know it is August 5th and are wow what just happened.   I so much would l like to say that I have even super busy and wrapped in this project or that project, but the truth is I have just been adapting to life back in Indiana.  I am not used to have rain wash it bike rides.  I am also not used to heat and humidity canceling rides.  However, it is a change that one must get used too.  The elements are different here.  I know the climate was going to be a shock to the system.  I think the humidity of July affected my body in ways I wasn’t really ready for.  I started cramping up after riding.  Then one Sunday, I was about to miles from the house almost at the top of a hill when I got a big ...

  East bound and down, loaded up and cycling…   Another great weekend cycling in Bloomington Indiana with BBC!  Really it has been a few great weeks on the bike.  I did 33 miles on Tour de Trails in Colombus, Indiana.  Then a few other rides around Bloomington and getting my indoor rides on my TacX.  I am averaging about 4 rides a week between inside and out.       Yesterday we headed out for a nice and easy ride out to the east side of Bloomington, which included heading out on SR 446 towards Lake Monroe.  I am going to get out there one of these days and ride around the great lake of Bloomington, just like some day I am going to get up north and ride around ole Gitche Gumee, but that is a goal and story for another time.   I left my house early yesterday because I wanted to get some extra riding before I met up with the group.  I was scheduled to get a 2 and ½ hour ride in on Sunday, and the 22 miles scheduled for the g...

  Many of you have seen a post I put on my Instagram and Facebook of me riding up Law Lane in Bloomington, Indiana.  What most of you don’t know is this was not just another hill for me to climb.  The ride up Law Lane has been a story 28 years in the making.    See this if you will, a young man of 19 stopping in a bike shop in Bloomington, Indiana on his way home from Louisville.  He buys his second Mountain Bike.  Unfortunately, some asshole had stolen his first Mountain Bike out of the basement of his fraternity house.  Joel his friend helps him pick out a nice purple bike for riding to class come the next fall.  It’s a nice Cannondale.    Let’s fast forward a few months now to the fall of his sophomore year. He is very excited about his purple bike, Grimace if you will, because we know this man, even back then when he was young like to name his bikes.  He heads out onto campus to ride to class.  He likes it.  Sure,...

  Time has been short.  I have just been busy.  No time to sit down to journal or blog.  It is a combination of work being work, well work.  I had started a blog about my ride out to Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge and how I felt like Frodo in the Fellowship of the Ring when the Fellowship was trying to get into Lothlorien.  The elves would not let them in and everyone in the Fellowship seemed to be hating Frodo and giving him the stink eye.  Well, that is how I felt climbing to and back from Muscatatuck.  Like everyone was giving me the stink eye because I can climb, it is just long, and slow climbing for me.  The short, steep little hills are kicking my ass around here.  The 30 some mile ride ended up being great.  I just hated the idea of having to go back up the big hill.  However, I made it, no quit in me.    Then last week, I got in three rides outdoors.  I love to ride outside.  Well, most of the...