Year Round Group Riding . . . South Dakota Style

When my parents had little kids, I remember them shooing us up to bed with the promise of an unpleasant consequence should we dare venture down the stairs and back towards their domicile. On many a cold, snowy South Dakota night we would hear cars and pickups pull up and the laughter of neighbors fill the first floor of our farm house. When we felt especially brave, my sister and I would slowly sneak down the stairs with the hope of getting a peak of the card party Mom and Dad often held to maintain their sanity.

Meet our card club
 

Tuesday and Thursday night, we put our kids to bed with similar promises, and then our friends sneaked into the house and crept into the basement with their bicycles and trainers, and we threw down some winter miles, South Dakota style.

I'm pretty sure Mom and Dad's people didn't wear spandex or smell quite like ours, but the intentions are all the same. We laughed. We visited. We rebooted. We brought our own drinks.

I'm pretty sure we would all agree with one thing: miles on a trainer go much faster when there are people to train with. We're hoping to make this a routine with regular rides on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the basement . When we bought this place five years ago, neither one of us could've imagined using our space for this, but it's well worth it.

As far as the rest of training goes, we're still inching our way back to the normal we want to be at. Jason has found some great relief from the PT the local chiropractor is giving his piriformis, and I'm just about done with the second monster cold of the season. I'm planning on sucking on an orange every day until April and wearing a mask around the walking petri dishes we call children. Yeah right.

Meantime, we'll continue to find some element of solace regardless of the weather in knowing we can spin and sweat with people who love to do the same thing.