I’ve been riding outdoors at least once a week since roughly December 2nd… usually on Sunday. Sometimes more, but not usually. Sometimes on the trainer, sometimes on the rollers in addition, but mostly it’s been once a week on Sunday, and I can’t think of a break in the streak.

Until now.

Passover is going to eat the next two Sundays. It’s that simple. So while I’m going to try and get out in the middle of the next couple of weeks, odds are bad. So despite the slowly improving weather… (I’m down to three layers from five for these early morning rides) The next couple weeks could well be a bust. So it goes.

Today I rode with some folks I haven’t seen in ages… they didn’t ride through the winter. They were in typical Spring form, and to my delight, the ride felt slow and relatively easy. It was about half as long as the ride I’ve been doing, and every little rise seemed to stop one person dead in their tracks.

Normally, I wouldn’t even notice… I’m rarely amongst the fastest folks… especially these last two years with all the knee pain (first left, and then right, one year each). Last year was a complete disaster, as somehow I almost never made it out to ride. I got slower and heavier all season, to the point where I couldn’t keep up with folks I could blow away a year earlier. But this year, so far, I’ve been feeling good, and the consistent riding has helped. I still have a lot of weight to lose… but that’ll come along (it’s already started, but I have a lonnnnng way to go to get back to where I was.)

Today I wore a heart rate monitor for the first time. I got inconsistent readings, which serves me right as I spent no time testing before the ride. Other aspects of the new computer will unveiled soon. And I’ll make sure I get the heart rate thing going over the next couple of weeks. Should be fun.

As an aside… I been riding the “weapon of choice” road bike for the last three weeks. Simply amazing. It’s not in full regalia yet, I’ve been riding with the midweight wheels mostly because I’m heavy, and figured if I taco a wheel, it might as well be the less expensive ones, plus they’re all crudded up from the winter, so until the roads are a bit cleaner, and I’m lighter… plus I never bought a new high end gruppo as planned, because, well, I wasn’t feelin’ it. This one will do for this season at least, we’ll see what happens down the road. Even so, the bike is light, stiff, and comfortable. Truly amazing stuff.