Coffee and Cigarettes

There is a long established pattern to my riding. This year is no exception. Sometime between late August and mid-September my riding gets sharply curtailed. I came back to exceptionaly good form by late August this year and I was hoping to ride the Freemont Peak Hillcimb race on September 8th but this was not to be. We got exceptionally nice weather the week before which pushed the grapes to the point of the first harvest coming in on Thursday the 5th. And once fruit arrives the time to train, much less arrange the schedule so that racing is possible is out the window. This summer was unusually frustrating as I went from very good form in May to terrible condition by mid July. Partly this was due to a lot of work travel keeping me off the bike, but mostly it was due to a bronchial infection taking a solid two weeks out of July. As I picked up the infection on a business trip to NYC I guess I can blame the entire mid-summer collapse on business travel. When I can't ride I fall back into bad habits. For most of my winemaking career I have smoked during harvest. It is a little break in the day. My logic is that the three or four cigarettes per day over the course of the six weeks of harvest will have no lasting effect on my long term health or short term lung capacity. I haven't done that the last two years, but this year I'm at it again - taking the coffee and cigarette breaks at mid morning and mid afternoon. I'm also bike commuting pretty regularly which is good. Yesterday morning my tail light went out on the ride in - heavy fog and predawn did not help matters and I was almost run down by one of my co-workers as I was turning into the winery. I purchased a more durable and higher output set of lights on the way home that same evening so hopefully that increases my chances of staying in one piece.