Spring fever.

A couple weeks ago, we had a taste of spring. Not a rainy, sort of chilly spring, but full-on sun and warmth. More like summer, really. Tank top weather.

It’s been a weird winter. One week we’d get a foot of snow, the next, it would be all gone. Temperatures fluctuated between zero and seventy. I never really got used to it being cold, because all too often we’d get a taste of it being warm again and whet my appetite for summer adventures. Evan and I bought new skis that we never got to use. The lack of true winter, or a lasting winter, was a little disappointing, but I’m not going to complain when the temperature rises into the 60s.

And so, last week, I was happy to bask in the sunshine in shorts and a t-shirt and embrace the coming of spring.

I took the studded tires off my commuter bike.

I had to send back the fat bike that I’d been riding all winter, and my review was published on Singletracks. It felt good to get it done, but I was sad to send the bike back. Now I get to start thinking about a fat bike for next winter.

I actually made good on a promise to myself to turn my El Mariachi into a singlespeed this year. And I did it mostly by myself with only a little bit of help from Jake and Evan. This is an accomplishment for me.

I bought seeds for my garden and have been prepping the raised beds. I’ve always gotten a late start on the whole garden thing and this year, I plan to be on top of things.

I did a great 50-mile ride with Jake and Caleb last Tuesday. It was one of the longest rides I’ve done solo (i.e. not on the tandem with Evan), with a lot of climbing. I was pretty tired but I also was amazed at how great I still felt. I even had to go into work right after and close down the bar, not getting home until 1 am. It was a busy night, and normally when I work that late I’m pretty tired because I don’t stay up past 10 or 11pm most nights of the week (I’m much more a morning person, and I also need a lot of sleep). But I actually felt really energetic. A lot of it was probably the great mood that I was in, because I’d just spent 5 hours riding. I jokingly said that I needed to ride 50 miles every Tuesday before work, but maybe it’s not so much a joke. I do want to start trying to do that kind of mileage at least once a week—maybe it needs to become my Tuesday routine.

I’m getting stoked for all sorts of goodness in the coming year. In less than 2 weeks I’ll be headed to Georgia for a weekend. Evan and I have a couple micro-adventures planned for April, a canoe trip and a tandem bike trip. The first week of May, we’ll be headed to Pisgah, NC to ride for a few days. Then it’s Dirt Fest, the Sojourn, and a gals mountain bike weekend in West Virginia with some of my closest lady friends.

But like I said, it’s been a weird winter, and now it actually feels like winter again, despite the fact that the calendar proclaims it’s spring. Those days of warmth have made me soft, and I am eagerly awaiting an opportunity to wear shorts and a t-shirt again. It looks like later this week, I might have my chance.