Fat Rides and Resolutions

Celebrating Christmas with our family took 4 days and included 3 Christmas dinners in 2 different states, at 3 separate houses,  and included some-18 hours worth of driving.  By bedtime on Christmas night, I was exhausted.  Happy to have spent such great time with our family, but completely worn our by the marathon.  Then it was back to work as usual... by Friday I was worthless and had to spend the night home in my jammies just trying to get back to normal.

Fully rested, we awoke on Saturday morning just rarin' to go.  So, we loaded up our fat bikes and headed to Lebanon hills to meet up with some friends for a sweet sun-lit snowy ride.  The trail was perfect and the sunlight through the trees made the view stunning.  

After a good two hours, we called it a day to save energy for the next day's ride.  After some warm food and cozy slippers, we napped lazily on the couch as the evening approached and planned for another day of riding.

Although the weather was going to be colder on Sunday, we still found some friends up for a ride and planned for an afternoon adventure down at the MN River Bottoms.  The chill in the air was crisp for our initial trek down the main road west on the River Bottoms, but the single track gave us relief from the wind chill.  We checked out the "Get Fat with Pat" fat bike race course with Dennis, KK, and Pete and enjoyed the well groomed trail.  The course has awesome flow and we could really get moving fast, breaking into a sweat before we had to slow ourselves down to keep from getting our gear wet and winding up frigid.  

The funniest part was as we came up to Nine Mile Creek and Jay attempted to ride across the frozen bridge one-handed while filming.... key word "attempted".  

Thank heavens for sticking to proven, reliable winter gear... thanks to his Louis Garneau Zero-Degree boot, his foot stayed dry and warm all day.  :)

Loving the course, we decided to come back again on Monday to see how fast a lap would take us.  Pete met us again and we got near 2 hours in on an even COLDER DAY yet!  (good ole Vasoline definitely kept some of the bite off my nose and cheeks!)

We got a ton of video on my GoPro but I have to trim it down before I can upload it to YouTube... otherwise it would have taken "638 hours to upload". Sheesh...  Unfortunately, I had to work a double on New Year's Day, so Jay went riding without me.  But there will definitely be more to come!

Yep, we made resolutions.  I even wrote them down and taped them to the pantry door cuz this year we're gonna make them our bitch and the fat bikes will help make it happen.  Moving the shop, working way too much, and various injuries and obligations really kept us from riding last year and it shows... between the two of us, we are 30 lbs. heavier than we were this time last year.  Not good.  

So, fat bikes, be ready!  We're gonna ride ourselves back into shape this winter and be ready to take the year by storm!  Not to mention enjoying the benefit of a healthy lifestyle...  yep, cutting back on the fried foods, take out, and treats. Add some veggies and fruits and exercise.. Tada!  And the experts say that to help stick to your resolutions, make them known.  We've set our goals and timelines and have successfully completed 36 hours. Whew.  

2013 is gonna be the best year yet.  Believe.

Kristy Kreme