A warm winter day

Sunday is the last day of the training week and I still needed to get in a two-hour ride and as luck would have it, the weather was almost perfect. By 9:30 am it was already 41 degrees and the skies looked pretty clear so I suited up and headed out.

Don Bull felt I needed to get in a little upper body work before my departure--actually not a bad little workout.

I gave the Litespeed a little tune up and put on the new fenders--the big question for the day was whether the fenders would do their job even with the really wet roads from all the melting snow.

The front fender kept me pretty much mud free--I'd give it an A+--so nice to stay dry!!

The rear fender also kept me spic and span with not a lick of mud on my back--another A+.

However, the fenders do deflect a lot of mud and water onto the drivetrain which I guess could become a problem after a really long ride.

Cruising along--it was bright and sunny--almost warm.

This is pretty must what the roads looked like all day so to stay dry after two hours I was really impressed with the fenders. I think I'll hint around that I need some for the 29er for my birthday.

Gorgeous!! I headed down to Milford to climb the hill up to the Boy Scout camps--it's by far the longest and steepest climb I have found around here--the 39x25 did not help my cause.

Other than a few patches of ice, this thing was the the only real problem of the day--I am no dog expert but this thing looks like it hauls ass (part greyhound?) and I did not have a 35 mph interval on the training schedule for the day, so I stopped to exchange pleasantries with it--it finally got bored listening to me bark and left as the owners pulled up in their car.

Cora took a couple of photos as I was sipping my "recovery" beverage--that girl makes a mean latte.

I could not resist a little cuddle time with Boo Miles.

Little did I know she was softening me up for play time--I guess Max explained to her that I needed more upper body work--she was still chasing me out the door to work asking if I would do that "lifting thing" one more time before I went.  I replied with the usual "I'm late!"  She smiled and reciprocated with the usual "then bring me a cinnamon roll from work and I will not be mad at you."  Nice.