this is not a love story.

In general, I know I am incredibly lucky to have a wife who enjoys the same passion for cycling and bike racing that I do. I love that when we are doing intervals we can chase each other around. I love going to the local parks and bombing around the single track with her. I’ll be honest, one of my most difficult seasons occurred when Diane was injured. My training wasn’t as pure, and frankly, I felt bad telling her about cross practice or riding or bombing around, because she couldn’t ride a bike. It just made bike racing not as much fun for me.

There are so many times when we ride together, and it’s just awesome. We have a great time. For me it's those moments that are some of  purest joyful moments. Some of the best days of my life have been on a bike with my wife.

This is not one of those stories.

I’ll admit, I was kinda grumpy coming home from work. Diane was really grumpy, tired of riding in the gray and cold that has been this March.  Honestly, if she had said,  let’s bag riding and go get some nachos, I would have bailed altogether…

As we rolled over to Fairhill, she was grumping on me about the weather. “If the weather doesn’t improve, I’m gonna hang up my bike until it gets nice. Did you see the 10 day forecast?”

My wife has an issue with the weather. Despite the fact that the weather forecast is only  right 50% of the time, she can’t stop looking at it on her phone.  It doesn’t help her mental outlook. And then she calls me to tell me how much the weather sucks. I can count on getting a “weather bomb” phone call or email 2-3x a day. This day, I couldn’t handle it.

So she says, “I’m gonna quit biking, this weather sucks. I can’t believe it. Where the hell is spring?”

Normally, I’d say something nice or encouraging, but tonight I drop the “ Well, that’s a great positive mental outlook. I mean a year ago you couldn’t even ride a bike at all, and now you won’t ride because it’s too cold. Suck it up.”  I continue, “ seriously, I have to deal with weather too, and Jesus if you weather bomb me again I’m gonna scream,  you make me not want to ride either. How about a little support here? We’re supposed to be supporting each other.”

Perhaps she expected my normal response.  She was quiet for a second and gave me a “ AW, go to hell!” as we dove into the trails at Fairhill.

For the next 30 minutes, we wandered our way around the  park. Diane laid out a very nice loop, that was really fun. We smiled and joked about how the trails were superhero good.  They were more solid then they had been in a weeks, and we marveled at how the bikes rolled and it was fun to feel fast for a little while.

Then she dropped, “ but it’s gonna rain tomorrow and all this will be shit again. We’ll be lucky to ride trails over here this weekend.

I paused for a second, “ WTF babe? Was that a stealth weather bomb? Seriously, didn’t we just talk about this?”

At this point in the ride, I decided I wanted to choose some trails, and pick the route back to the house.  So I announce, “okay you picked the route for the first 30 minutes, I get to pick the second 30 minutes.  Head up three little Bears, and we’ll cut across the section back to the fairgrounds” I smile smugly to myself with my proclamation.

“ I hate Three little bears” She says.

In a douche voice I respond, “So, you get to pick the entire route? I never get a say in what we ride? Oh, that’s cool.”

She shoots me a dirty look and starts up three little bears.  Then I notice that she has shifted into has absolute smallest gear.  She spins slowly and deliberately as we work our way back up the side of the hill and towards the park.

“there are two trails I hate to ride in this park, three little bears and skip a trail- YOU KNOW THIS! ” she mutters.

“suck it up.” I jab, “I ride whatever you want all the time, you can’t ride this today? WTF ?”

I watch as her cadence slows, and the MPH on my GPS indicates that we might be riding backwards.

After what seems forever we finally make it to the top and I look over at her “seriously, were you trying to see how slow you could go up that? You were barely pedaling, What gives?” I quip.

Monkey smirks at me with that devious shit eating grin, that frankly I fall in love every time she flashes at me. “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. It’ just a hard hill.”

We both burst into laughter.

“this weather is really bringing me down. Like super bad seasonal stuff or something man. April is this weekend. I’m gonna crack…” Diane volunteers.

“I know the weather is tough, the gray and cold just sucks… You know I gotta be honest, I would have bagged riding tonight if you weren’t going. Seriously, if you would have said, let’s get Nachos I would have jumped on it.”

“Nachos? Really? I figured it’s take more than nachos… .”

We rode home talking about my nephew and his assignment to name 5 things that you’d find on a farm.

The ride home was decidedly more pleasant.