A Cold but Fun Ride W/ Teammates

sure they're teammates but they're also my friends. specifically it's my boys kenny and chris. it was close to 50 degrees when we met at chris' house. chris showed us his latest domestic disaster when his upstairs neighbor's dishwasher sprung a humongous leak.
with the help of gravity it completely busted through the plaster and lathe ceiling into his kitchen. poor guy. chris is taking it pretty well and hoping that the corporate juggernaut that's called insurance'll do its part in making it right.
our goal today was to do a chilly-chill ride (no pun intended)-all small chainring-to get the arse used to hours sitting and to apply watts to the pedal in real time conditions (not the rollers i've been using since it became cold). the snow and melting snow was a wee bit of a factor and an annoyance-especially in our hindquarters. of course none of us brought our fenders-oh well.
it's been a while since i rode in denver and i forgot how hip the place is. the residential architecture, the trees, the closeness to very urbane things, it's really a great area to live, mile-high style. the butt shot picture of my teammates is at a park with a plagiarized name of washington park (of ny fame). check out the snow that's still malingering...okay, we ride out to the chatfield reservoir on bike trails and there's a lot of people on the trails enjoying the sunny climes. we talk about the latest presidential race and chris is on a diatribe about the democratic front-runner hillary clinton. he's just ranting and raving and at a certain point i realize it's a unilateral discussion. kenny and i were kinda chuckling about his blinders=opinion train of thought. it's like trying to argue logically about creationism vs. evolutionary theory (i'm a science teacher). you can't argue your point with someone who believes in an afterlife. so kenny and i do the mutual non-verbal communication of one twirling ones' index finger around an ear, mutual mind melt. that's why we love that christopher...
2/3rds of the ride (back home) kenny's completely jonesing for a doughnut. not any ordinary doughnut but a lamars doughnut. as (lack of) luck would have it, they've closed minutes before we arrived. instead we go to my favorite corporate coffee joint-starbucks. i'm all for ma and pa outfits but for conveniences' sake, it hits the spot. i order a double espresso and a blueberry coffee cake-there goes the fat burning aspect of our ride.
i tried to get fancy with the picture of us soaking some uv radiation patio-side using the solarizing effect. going left to right, it's kenny, me, and christopher. not very artsy huh.
it was a good three hour ride today. i don't think we even busted the 40-mile mark we were going so darn slow. in fact, i think a south american sloth past us when we were going downhill. i'm going to attempt a hill climb ride tomorrow in golden. hopefully the 60 year-old guy wearing jeans riding the 100 pound mountain bike with the 1970s skid-lid won't pass me! oh yeah, eat more vitamins (shameless wasn't it?)! there's the official 4h team ride tomorrow but i can't make it due to familial (linked to temporal) obligations. that's okay though, my family's pretty righteous.
funny quote of the day: when we were in starbucks some girls were looking at us. not because we're especially handsome (per se) but we're grown men wearing matching, spandex outfits steeped in garish purples and oranges. it must be visually nutty to spectate for non-cyclists. so to explain the interest in us kenny explains (with complete deadpan delivery), "chicks dig me. i'm kind of a big deal." kenny's probably the most humble guy we know so christopher and i get a big laugh out of his chick magnet hypothesis.