Catching Up And Death March Weather Watch

Times are a bit quiet. The death grip of winter eased slightly over the past few weeks only to come back shortly thereafter. Luckily two weekends ago I was finally able to get outside and got in a decent 30+ mile ride with some hills. I felt fantastic, and could have ridden another 30 if not for the one water bottle I had (the water fountain at one of my usual water stops is turned off) and I wanted to watch some Olympic action that afternoon. But, it looks like the indoor riding is helping. Whether it, and some additional riding I got in this past weekend, will be enough for the impending Death March remains to be seen. My outdoor riding time is a shadow of what it was for races like the Gravel Grovel, last year's Barry Roubaix, or even my 2012 Death March ride. Although, the weather has likely hurt the training time for the other riders so I should be in good company.

In other matters, I received the last piece of my 2014 race bike…

No matter what I tried I could not flip this photo
horizontally. Sorry about that.

However, the bike will remain in pieces until sometime later in March. My plan is not to ride it for the Death March or the Barry Roubaix, for the less than awesome reason that I read online that the paint on the frame may chip if subjected to gravel roads.  Both the Death March and the BR have a bit of gravel, and I’d like the new bike to remain pretty until at least the first XC race. Then the gloves are off.

Also of note, I had my first crash of 2014. On the morning of the 25^th we had a light dusting of snow, so I decided to forgo the spin bike/Sufferfest workout, and ride the fat bike. I took my normal route through the Butler University campus, which includes riding a trail behind their fitness center down to an access point for the Central Canal Towpath. The trail ends at a gravel maintenance road, which, after hopping over a small pile of snow, I took one pedal stroke on and my rear wheel (with its huge 4 inch tire) slid out and down I went. Hard. My arm took the brunt of the hit, along with my left hip. Probably would not have been too bad of a crash if there had been more snow on the ground, or on trail. As it was, the ice was like concrete, and the cold made things worse. One mile in on my ride and I’m limping home slowly. Everything was fine, save the pain and scrapes, and I was able to do a short spin that evening without much of a hindrance.

We had what was hopefully the last snowfall of the year. While 6-10 inches was predicated, we barely got three. Still, it made for a nice snow bike ride.

 

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to the Death March this upcoming Saturday. The map of the check points is here. My partner and I have our strategy set out and have several contingency plans depending on the weather and the final two mandatory check points.  Unless it is listed as a mandatory check point, we do not plan on bagging Callahan Cemetery. The time bonus is not worth the fight in to the cemetery and back out again, especially if the trail conditions are less than ideal due to melting snow or rain. Also, fingers crossed that Gorbetts Cemetery is not pulled as a mandatory check point. Having to go that far afield from the other checkpoints for that stop would seriously dampen my enthusiasm for the day's event.

Without further ado, it is the traditional weather watch. Presently, Weather Underground is predicting this for Saturday:

A local news outlet's prediction for the same area and day is this:

 

The differences in the two forecasts is somewhat concerning. We'll see how the weekend shapes up over the course of the next few days.