A mediocre start to the new year

As I've said before, I haven't been putting in the miles on my bike as I would have hoped to, (I'm still way above where I was last year, not even owning a bike.) I've been using a trainer, but that's torture so I rationalize not doing it. However, with the slight warm up I decided to finally take out my new road bike for a spin. 

I bought the frame, a Scattante Team XRL, in the beggining of December, and it finally came in right before the new year. Got everything built and waited for my Ultegra Lx brakes to come in, worth the wait, they peform well and look really nice. Two weeks ago I finished the build, but with sub zero tempatures and snow covered roads didn't risk taking it out. Weds I felt confident enough to take it out and I gotta say it peforms wonderfully. The Mavic Askium's are stiff, smooth rolling and responsive. I didn't get to test it's full ability as some of the roads where still snow covered, but I was easily able to get it up to 30 mph in a psuedo sprint, not full out. 

Today, was warmer and I thought the perfect day to take out my "rain" bike, a Fuji newest 4.0. Nothing spectacular but it does the job of being a good beater bike. It was about 35 degrees out and the sun was shining, which made the going even more treacherous. THe snow that was left on the road turned into slush and made it feel like riding on ice. Once again because of the conditions I had to cut it short. So two rides, with 15 miles. Not the way I wanted to start of the year. Ray's Cross Country Mountain Bike race is tomorrow, so here's hoping that three days at Rays kicks off my training.