May 18th was the date of my last day off a bicycle.  It was raining and generally crappy.  I know it was gnarly outside because that’s the only reason I’ll take a day off.  However, when I’m tired, nothing beats an easy spin around the neighborhood and last evening was the evening for that.

We went straight from early spring to summer again this year and acclimatizing was near impossible.  It seemed like one day was 55, the next was 90 (12 and 32 C respectively).  I’ve had a few ugly rides in the heat and neither Chuck nor I were looking to melt asphalt last night.

I had some tinkering to do with the Venge so I handled that first (successfully).  Then, because I haven’t ridden it in a while, I swapped the Venge for the Trek and went for a pile of bonus miles.  I don’t know how many I had when I pulled into Chuck’s driveway, but it was a lot.  And from there, we rode side-by-side most of the way, talking about a little of the goings on in Flint and Detroit (where protests have not been violent, and our police have taken up the cause with those who are peaceful – while absolutely dominating any attempt at escalation).  Flint and Detroit, for once, will become the model for how to handle scenarios of this nature, both from a police and a demonstrator’s point of view.  Things went so well last night, police didn’t even have to bother enforcing the curfew.

Current events out of the way, it was one of the best “active recovery” rides I can remember – and it was hot last night, too, so I’m hoping between last night and tonight, I’ll start getting used to the heat.  I can’t ever remember having this much trouble adjusting (I love the heat).  It’s been a bear this year.

I pulled into the driveway with 33-1/2 miles at 16.99-mph and a smile on my face.  Dinner (pizza from a local Italian joint) with my wife was awesome and the meeting afterward (still out in the parking lot, but word is getting around, we had 18 show up last night).  By the time I got home and crawled into bed, I was out in a matter of seconds and I slept like a rock.

This morning I feel a lot better, but I think I’m going to give it one more easy day in the heat before starting to hammer again.  I need for my legs to wake up a little bit and they’re not quite there yet.