It’s 5 days into 2015. I am starting to get cabin fever from not biking. Today I looked at my riding history from January 2014. Back then I rode 329 miles but I am beginning to doubt that I can replicate that mileage this year. The weather has not reached 60 degrees yet and the one day it got close it rained. I am a temperature wimp who can’t bring himself to ride when it is below 60 degrees.

By coincidence my wife and I both looked up the weather for Key West, FL. Today it was 84 degrees and the rest of the week the forecast calls for 79 degrees. We visited there last year in May but I am wanting to go there now to escape this cold weather. The problem is taking my bike with me on the airline. There are bike rentals there but not like the bike I ride.

I used to think Houston was far enough south to ride almost every week. The last time I was on my road bike was December 22nd. The weather forecast:

Not one day gets to or above 60 degrees. Some days even have rain.

A tale of woe!!!

Update: I forgot to mention that last night while we were watching TV we heard a hissing sound behind us. I got up and tried to locate the noise. Entering the utility room I saw water spraying from the wall behind the washer. The cold water hose was spewing water near the valve in the wall. The valve had not been turned for over 20 years and I had to work on it to get it to turn. I grabbed a towel to deflect the water so that I could see. I turned the washing machine on to lower the water pressure (not sure this did anything) and finally got the valve turned off. Cleaning up the mess I couldn’t move the washer out very far since it was 1/2 full of water.

This morning I went to Lowes for replacement hoses. I got the washer empty and pulled it out. As I was unhooking the cold water hose from the washer I saw that end was shot as well. I went ahead and replaced both hoses. Hopefully they last another 20+ years. This gave me something to do while I couldn’t bike.

It was good that we were home to stop the flooding. 30 years ago in our previous house we were not so fortunate when the washer mixing valve burst and we ended up with 2 – 3 inches of water in the utility room. We were not home then.