I've gotten FAT

Well, last week I had nothing. The winter blues, SAD, work stress, life stress, it sort of piled on to the undersized running back at the bottom of the linemen heap. Last night we had a good TurkeyDay meal with my dad at Ruth's Chris; a manly steak from there can cure much.

On the bike front I'm pretty pleased that some mileage has started trickling back in to the routine. Mid-week I told myself I would ride myself out of my doldrums, and 4 straight days on the bike has helped, including a nice hills ride with Dave and Barturtle on Saturday morning. Yesterday before dinner and amid some sax clinic taxiing I tested out a new toy (let it be said, my father, however complex, is generous with his capitalist pile) that I picked up last week. I've wanted a fat back for a few years, not really as a "snow" bike but as a fun bike. I see one more as a gravel, adventure, bikepack, muck, goof, snow steed, a fun bike, you know?  I started doing some research recently and pretty easily narrowed it down to a Surly or a Salsa, given the local options of shops to work with and price point. I really thought I was going to buy a Surly Pugsley or Pugs Op from my lbs, OYLC, but then I ran across some info of frame cracking, or at a minimum, powder-coat cracking. After my Troll experience, it just wasn't that hard to turn me on to something different. A sort of new-ish shop in the area, Main Street Bikes, in Shelbyville about 25 miles away (hometown of my grandmother), had not 1 but 2 Mulkluk2s in stock a S and a M. I decided to head out and test the Salsas, and if that didn't float, then I still had a Surly product as an option.

After testing both, I decided on the S, even though the overly small frame on the Troll was a questionable factor. Fact is, my back has been a little tweaky lately, and the M made my back hurt, so S it was.

This story is longer than expected. Yesterday (Sunday) I grabbed my window and gave the Mukluk a spin in Cherokee, a bit on the trails and a bit in the slop. As read, the Mukluk steers pretty straight- supposedly for snow carving- and requires some mojo as a pure trail bike; most of the webbage suggested that the Pugs was much more "mt.bikey". That being said, it was goofy fun on the trails, and I found myself clearing some stuff with ease that gives me pause on the front-suspended 29er. I sit here at 6.35am believing in all my heart that I'll go out to find a flat front tire, because I slammed that sucker hard a couple times, and the concept of tire pressure is like astrophysics with a fattie.

I'll do a more appropriate review of some type at some point, but suffice to say it was very fun and I look forward to my next ride. Bikepacking adventure, anyone? DBNF?

And finally, amid my recent blackness, I bring you to a post and quote from Frontage Roads. I read it and for some reason, it clicked measurably.

It’s really easy to get caught up in the day to day crap and get lost. I’ve been a victim of that lately. Worrying about the small things, makin’ them bigger things than they need to be. I’m tryin’ to work through that. Pushing through the monotony and looking ahead. What’s that called when you are on the bike? Target Fixation, that’s it. Try to avoid the rock, but you stare at it and your run right into it and boom, fall down. Look where you want to go and not where you are. Focus on the horizon ya dingus!

 Yes, for sure.