%$@%^&!!! Weather

For the third week in a row, my race has been canceled due to the weather. Here's a perfect time to roll off into a good old man rant:

When I was a young racer, dammit we never canceled races due to weather. Unless there was 6 inches of snow and ice on the road, it was game on! I remember winning a race because my bike was the only one left that could change gears. It was that bad out. And we didn't have any of this sissy gore-tex-thinsulate wondro material clothing either. It was good ol' wool socks, silk undershirts, plastic bags in the shoes and if it was really nasty, a chamois chest protector. Do they still make those? No, of course not. They were cheap, easily made and they lasted a good long time. I still wear wool gloves out on the road. Your hands still stay warm even if the glove start getting wet. This past week, I decided to try to embrace technology and I used a pair of neoprene socks the other day. It was around 30 degrees and yeeeessshh, my damn feet froze. This is moving forward? Hell, I'll just go back to my wool socks and plastic bags if this is what the tech clothing world does for you. I pine for the old days when little things like a blizzard didn't stop us from having a race. It just made it more of an epic day and one more classic thing to brag about to the young riders when we'd be out on a training ride. It'd be like 'Oh, you think today is bad. I remember doing a race when things were so bad out....' and 'and just when we crested the climb, you'd think we'd get a chance to rest? Heck, no, we had to climb the other side of that mountain too. We only had 10 gears to do it with too. You punks are spoiled rotten.'