Frozen slush, rollers and nice shorts.

Here in Portland that beautiful white, fluffy snow is leaving. It is slowly being replaced by the worst form of precipitation - freezing rain. This has made quite a mess of unplowed side roads. The original snow was tacky and compacted nicely without icing over. Now there are big ruts where tires have traveled most frequently, and often shiny slick spots where those tires spun without traction. If there isn't a shiny slick spot, it's a hole in the bottom layer of frozen slush track. Put those holes and slick spots every foot or so, and it's an alignment-wrecking drive from our street to the main road.

The current conditions have put an end to fairy tail winter mountain biking in the snow, although I did ride the mtb to work on Tuesday and it was quite an adventure. The usual 50-60 minute commute took an 1 hour 20 minutes. I got bogged down in a few intersections downtown and yes, I fell once. And laughed.

So I've been riding the rollers. I've had a mental block on using the rollers this year. Some years I get obsessed and do 3-4 hour sessions without blinking. Some years I get antsy after 5 minutes and just ride outside no matter what. I thought this year might be more like the latter, but riding the rollers has been fun. Well, as fun as riding indoors can be. A buddy just let me borrow a bunch of Roubaix and Flanders videos from the past few years, and that keeps me pretty well entertained. That and breaking the time down into 5-10-20 minute sessions where I work on one thing or another.

Up until this year, I've always used old, ratty bibs to ride the trainer and saved my new kit for team rides and racing. I've recently had the epiphany that this is the wrong way to go. I wore some new bibs yesterday, and could not believe how much longer I could sit without some uncomfortable feelings in the chamois region. When you're on the rollers (or trainer), you don't often move around very much and there isn't a lot of air circulating down there. Combine that with a thin, worn-out chamois and it's not pretty. New shorts are perfect for indoor riding - no rain, grease, oil and general road spew to fall upon them, and you don't wear them as long as you would for those long outdoor rides. You do sweat a lot in them, so I wouldn't wait around to wash if your sweat (like mine) eats shorts pretty aggressively!

Time for another roller session and class is in session. Today's pick is Belgians Taught German Lesson!