As of this typing, I have yet to ride outside in 2014. I have still been "riding" mind you, but my efforts have all been in my basement, on my trainer. You may not have noticed, but we’ve been in bit of a cold spell on the East Coast recently. Well, you probably have noticed because everything, even the weather, is more newsworthy when it happens on the East Coast. When the temperature drops to the level of a Tuesday in Saginaw, the reporters get shoved into parkas and pushed out into the street. This is how we know there’s weather happening, because there’s people standing outside and talking to cameras.

This past week has produced a lot of this weather standing, and when there’s a lot of parka people on the television, that’s my cue to not ride outside. My last outdoor ride was on December 30, 2013, and with this weekend’s forecast for rain with periods of misery and despondency, I see more indoor riding in my future. This is a daunting notion, as my techniques for coping with the soul crushing boredom of trainer riding are becoming less effective. I’m running out of ways to maintain trainer sanity, and that’s bad because trainer madness is the price of mightiness.

These are indeed the dark days in the pursuit of mightiness. Every year at this point my resolve is tested. Each basement pedal stroke becomes a challenge, a trial where my desire for speed is pitted against my desire to sit comfortably and not sweat my way through a pair of shorts. Until now, I have been up to the challenge, and hope to be able to maintain the low-level of brain activity required to continue on the trainer. This may require beer.

In other news, I think I need new shoes. My trusty DMTs are slowly coming apart. The soles are detaching from the uppers, and it’s only a matter of time before they go their separate ways. This may surprise you, but there is absolutely no one anywhere that is interested in sponsoring a middle aged New Jersey man as he plods away in his basement on his trainer, so I will be purchasing these shoes myself, as I do with almost all of my cycling equipment. (Contrary to what some may think, no one at NYVC gets anything for free, except for Andy on occasion, and he earns these items by reviewing and photographing them. I am too stupid and lazy to write reviews.) This means that my quest for shoes has begun, and I can look forward to my Google searches funneling images of shoes I just searched for into every available advertising nook and cranny of my browser window.

 This is probably bad, right?

I have also not been diligent in requesting beers to showcase from Roman. This is due to laziness and sloth on my part. I will remedy the situation in time for next week’s post.