Thursday, October 30, 2014

Weather and Gearing Expertise, and WWJTBVD

I repeat myself, could be a little cold on Saturday.  Or a little wet.  Or both.  

As such, there's a virtual shitstorm brewing on the interwebs regarding the actual storm that might be brewing that may or may not be serving up some extra pain and frozen toes for the Paranormal.  So, in an effort to settle this down a bit, I went to the real forecasting authority, Kev29er, who also happens to be the expert on record when it comes to local gearing choices for the 1-cog crowd.  So you get a BOGO of wisdom here, which is worth something, or perhaps nothing, depending on your tolerance for bad weather and singlespeeding.  

From Kev29er:
Weather: Showers likely, mainly before 2pm. Cloudy, with a high near 47. North wind 5 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
Sat Night: A chance of showers before 8pm. Mostly clear, with a low around 34. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
30% chance of showers = 70% chance of awesome, right?

Gearing Choice: 34X19 for the winner.  

So there that is.  It's only Thursday, but 50% of the authorities concur that there's a 50% chance that the worse of the 50% chance of sleet will be blown our of here by game time.  

I like those odds.  

In situations such as this, I do two things:
#1)  I try to think about What Jesse The Body Ventura Would Do (WWJTBVD) in a situation like this (also Paranormal costume idea # 349,902,115):
and #2) I try to keep in mind that we race mountain bikes, in a large part, because it hurts, and if it didn't hurt everyone would do it, so pain is actually a part of what makes it good.  And 6 hours of The Paranormal in a cold mist would certainly be good in that way, if you can admit to yourself the truth.

Because riding a ribbon of tacky dirt through a coating of snow is actually the very fulcrum upon which life turns:
 
Remember what the Tao says about these things: To be whole, you must let yourself break.

Or something like that.

Up, up, up.


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