It’s your lucky day. Martinayellowbug is tuckered out from some excellent and top-secret training this week. Which means I get to guest-blog to tell you all what Martina’s missing in Oakland.

Which is this – it’s wet here. After seemingly endless sunny, clear days all the way through November, winter has arrived extra wet to make up for lost time. On this topic, there’s an annual discussion among riders here: to ride or not to ride in the rain. Many of us make our intentions known well in advance about whether we’re going to show up when the weather goes south. This is usually something along the lines of: “NFW”. To which the other camp responds: “Suck it up, rain makes you tougher”.

Now, I’ve lived in Northern California long enough to know that fenders, rain capes, and all the toughening up provided by slogging through the cold/wet/dirty only makes the “NFW” group one thing, which is grumpy. So when we have these discussions, there’s no point in trying to convince them to suck it up. You’ll just end up with a miserable riding partner who makes a point of torturing you in some horrific way down the road. Has anyone noticed how these folks often are zero-percent-body-fat climbers? AND that this horrific torture down the road is likely to be some “easy” ride that involves 8,000 ft of climbing?

Lucky for Martina, I’m not one of those riders! She knows I’m good for rainy rides. My secret to a sunny disposition on wet ‘n cloudy days?   rain rides = french fries.   I like to skip the mayonnaise because though I’m no climber, there IS a weight limit on my race wheels…but if I get home wet, I might as well be Belgian, so french fries are on the menu!

You may prefer Belgian waffles, beer or chocolate but with this handy tip, every rain ride can turn into a happy opportunity to enjoy your favorite (forbidden?) foods. I bet Martina’s really sad now that she’s missing out on this week’s non-stop food fest. Cheers for now, gotta go find my fenders.

–Taitt

This is Taitt’s leg. Wow, lots of muscle!

MP: I’ve heard that sort of injury only happens to highly attractive and intelligent women, like you. And John Hunt (I’m referring to the broken tibial plateau, not the highly attractive and intelligent women part).

T Hot S: The real problem is that tibia is the main weight bearing bone in your body. You can crack it like a grain of wood if you have a fracture, so I have to be really careful. It’s so hard to be good, because it actually doesn’t hurt too bad if I stand and walk carefully at this point.

MP: Is the fracture north to south or east to west?

MYB and T Hot S together in action