January 31, 2013:  Believe or not I made it out riding today. There were some instances were I was regretting this decision.  I was surprised how much I got blown around by 30 to 40 mph wind gusts at times.  It really sucked as a headwind or off your 10 to 11 o'clock as you were trying to go uphill.

Yes, the wind took it out of me.  When I put my gear on it was barely over 50 degrees.  It dropped steadily during my ride.  Through in the wind and it was cold, damn cold.  Fortunately I was layered with a wind breaker, fleece, and thermal on my top, riding shorts and pants on the bottom.  I should have opted for the three finger gloves but went conventional gloves with riding gloves over them.  I did not suffer to much.

My time did suffer.  I can tell that the holidays played hell and not being out on the road since late October had its drawbacks.  My average speed was slightly better than 12 mph.   I would do this same route in the summer at close to 15 to 18 mph, but I did not have the cold and wind.  I also only did 15.8 miles.

The one thing I did get out of today is that hopefully this year I will get at least one ride in every month of the year.

Later

Well here it is, the start of a new bicycling year.  I hope this year is better than last year.   I retired with 30 years of Federal Government Service in April 2012.  In May of 2012 I underwent shoulder surgery along with a couple of months of physical therapy.  So my serious riding did not start until late June.  This knocked me out of two events I wanted to ride in.  The Charles River Wheelmen (CRW) Climb to the Clouds Century in July and the D2R2 in August.  I just did not have the legs for it.  I did manage to have the legs, just barely, for the CRW fall metric Century.

After noticing some pain in my knee on another shorter ride later in the fall, I put my bike up for the season until I could get it checked out.  It turns out to be nothing more than arthritis in both my left knee hip.  So I have been going with a series of injections in both joints to help.  My doctor has told me that keep moving and keep it lubed and bicycling is one of the best things for it.  Now if the weather would cooperate.

Since the weather is not cooperating that much, my wife and I have joined a gym.  I also got a book called The Bicyclist Training Bible.  This is a good reference and I have been trying to follow its suggestions.  I need to get back into riding shape.  The holidays and my knee injections have limited me some, but I hope to be back into a full training regimen in another week.   This will help me get rid of the extra baggage I gained since Thanksgiving.  Not pretty.

So yesterday, January 29 I looked at the weather forecast.  Sunny breaks possibly 60 degrees.   So I pulled my bike down, put on winter commuter tires because of the amount of sand and grit that may be on the road, checked my GPS unit out and hoped that January 30 would be a good day.  Well, to make a long story short.  It's not.  The weather has changed.  The highs barely reaching 50, wind gusts later in the day over 20 and thick dense fog this morning with melting snow and ice in the road.  Not ideal for riding.  It looks like another day in the gym.