The Domination of Nature

Perfect weather for a ride you would think. It was an unusual day for me to get out of work early and on my drive home the sun was blaring and the roads were considerably dry and I thought to myself it would be great to get in a ride outside after work for ONCE. My Power Tap arrived UPS overnight form Colorado Springs service center with a new and desperately needed battery replacement. I told myself it would be nice to take the road bike out for a ride instead of the MTB. Once I hit the door to my house I was like a little kid, so excited to get out and play. Chasing around the house to gather all the necessities I need to ride outside in thirty degree weather. Time was a waisting and sunset comes too soon at this time of year as I hurried frantically sliding in my socks on the hardwood floor nearly wiping out before I even get on the bike.

I hit the road after a few checks, tires, tube, water, phone camera, gel... I decide to take the parkway route instead of Burleigh out to Pewaukee, for some reason riding on the city streets around five o'clock rush hour does not excite me, especially when drivers are trying to avoid pot holes, I certainly would not win. I wore my winter riding jacket and just the Craft wool cold weather shirt, since it was a bit warm and I knew I would start sweating soon. I forgot that the wind is wicked cold when riding the road bike since it is much faster then the MTB and it was whipping inside my gloves and my fingers were practically numb right away. Thirty minutes into my ride I was just feeling comfortable and it looked like the sun was starting to set.

I was so excited to ride outside I did not look at my meter for awhile and as I was riding at a pretty good clip, I looked down and saw that my power was at zero to 30 Watts which was ridiculous. I pulled off to the side to try to remedy the situation and find a cause. My first thought was to blame the knuckle head who put in the new battery for he must of changed some settings by accident. I jiggled a few wires and started to ride again to see my lack of knowledge did not seem to fix the problem. Now I was getting pissed. I was so happy to be outside and ride the road bike and it was failing me and made this all the more frustrating when you want to do some interval work. So I turned around and headed back home at a furious pace to call the service center.
At least on the way back home I had a nice moderate climb to burn off some steam. I got in the door peeled off all my riding garments now full of sweat and headed upstairs to my computer. I hooked up the SRM to check the settings and they were intact, no one messed with the slope settings. I sat in front of the computer screen staring at the readings totally upset because I just wanted to ride. Luckily Ty just walked in the door from work to help me trouble shoot the situation. He had me get back on the bike after I mounted it to the trainer and start spinning. The first question he asked me was, "did you zero out the computer?" Uh, no I quietly stated. "Well try that." So I got off, zeroed out the computer and WA LA! I was back to business, THANK YOU TY! Silly Me.

It took up some motivation by now to work up the appetite to finish off the ride on the trainer since I originally had my hopes so high on a great road ride. I dug in and got to work to the music on the shuffle. I flipped towards the back end of my music library where I keep the hammer music stored and started with Front 242, Headhunter Vol 3 as I got ready for the pain. One minute into the final interval the music died and that is when I really dug deep and said WTF?

So the moral of today's story, we rely to much on technology from daylight savings time to conserve on the energy we continue to waste and all the electronics I "think" I need to have a good ride, had me pondering thoughts to a class I took in college, the philosophy of technology and where it is really taking us.