Tomorrow we ride at dawn!

Ok, we ride at 6:45. Nonetheless, this is it. We've met as a group (~1/3 guys who just retired, ~1/4 international from Holland, England, Ireland, Australia and Trinidad, then an odd assortment of people who can get the time off from work and afford the trip.). (One woman couldn't get the time off, so got herself fired!) All in all it's a nice friendly, athletic looking, group.

We had our first "ride rap" (each night's overview of the next day's ride). On day 1, we'll ride 80 miles with 4,080 feet of climb and 63 turns. At one point, we have to dismount and climb under a fence! (I'm not kidding.) Small price to pay for dipping our back wheel in the Pacific and bicycling across the Golden Gate Bridge. Odd factoid- tomorrow is also the start of AIDSlifeCycle7 (a.k.a. the California AIDS ride) which goes from San Francisco to LA. I did this ride in 2006. It will be 3.000 of them moving south and 40 of us moving north....

San Francisco Bay Trail

Was this the last training ride, or the prelude to the big ride? I rode out on the San Francisco Bay Trail. When finished, it will run 500 miles around the Bay. My little part was about 15 miles out and 15 back. Fortunately the trail starts about 100 yards from my hotel. (South of the Airport on the map). The day started with SF’s classic fog and drizzle, but by the end of the ride gave way to blue skies and sunshine. The first part of the ride was on an elevated paved path, right at the edge of the bay. The views of the bridges, mountains, and water were impressive. After a while, the path veers off to follow marshlands and then into very upscale business parks; the home of Oracle and Shutterfly. Lunch was at a neat Thai restaurant. I had something other than Pad Thai. (It wasn’t on the menu). When I got back to the hotel, I met a few more members of our group; a couple from Holland (whose bikes were still in London) and a guy from Tasmania (who was riding a recumbent). Then I took a nice nap. By way of answer to my thesis question, today’s outing was the prelude to the big ride. If it had been a training ride, it would have pushed me from 1990 training miles to 2,020. Breaking the 2,000 mile mark just wasn’t something I had to do. ; - )

Just Hangin' With My Bike

Here's the "before and after" picture of my bike. There is something very meditative about assembling a bike. Unwrapping each part like a present on Christmas morning. Laying them out in some semblance of order. Picking each piece up, contemplating its function and orientation on the bike. The saddle and the handle bars are loosely seated first. Later they'll be perfectly squared. Once the saddle and bars are on, the bike can be vertical. Upside down, but vertical- much easier to work on than laying on its side. The the skewers are placed in the hubs and the wheels on the bike. Someday I'll learn how to mount the rear wheel w/o getting all greasy. Now the bike goes right side up, the pedals go on, and I'm good to go.

I met my first fellow rider at breakfast. Suresh is from Trinadad, a military guy on one year, pre-retirement leave. He's not concerned about the hills, but he's unsure of the cold.

So it's 8:15 a.m. (Pacific time), I've had breakfast and assembled my bike. What next? Maybe I'll go for a little ride....http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5187857015204185797&postID=4615346519992722319#
Show all

I made it to San Francisco!

Just think, blogging at 35,000 feet. That’s better than being in the mile high club, isn’t it? ; - ) It will be sweet if the whole journey is like this. I printed my boarding pass at home, gave my duffel to the skycap, breezed through airport security, and had a pleasant sit down lunch. The flight to Charlotte was uneventful. It’s a nice airport. I like to sit on the white rocking chairs up on the mezzanine and watch the flow of people. It helps the time between connections pass. Then it was off to San Francisco. There was an empty middle seat next to me! When was the last time you had that happen? (There was a lot of gallows humor on USAir. They’re charging for sandwiches and “snack boxes” now, and June 1 will do away with the pretzels and coke.) But I don’t care, when the coast to coast fair in $179, I’ll eat at the airport restaurant before boarding. Hmm... I just looked out the window. I wonder how far it is from horizon to horizon. 100 mile? 200? 300? A couple or three days riding? We’re over Pueblo, CO, an hour from San Francisco by plane. It will be day 20 (and 1,429 miles) by bike. Arriving in San Francisco, my bag was the third one on the carrousel and the hotel shuttle was there within 10 minutes. Life is sweet.

I'll be there tomorrow, my bike's there today!

My bike is in San Francisco (double click on the tracking document). I'm so excited. Little things continue to go wrong; Petunia escaped our grasp and missed her trip to the vet. My packing plan fell apart (literally) when I gave the duffel one more tug to close the zipper. The replacement campaign bag is five pounds heavier, so I'm now 5 lbs over the 35 lb. limit. Will anybody really care? (How do soldiers pack in a duffel when they go off to war for a year?) But these are little things! I don't really care. Tomorrow I'm off for San Francisco! Saturday is the ceremonial wheel dip in the Pacific. Sunday we start riding in earnest to cross our great country. I am so psyched...

Memorial Day, Almost Packed

It’s Monday, I fly to San Francisco on Thursday, and feel oddly serene. I’ve packed the bike, put my household affairs in order, and made sure my students are going in the right direction at work. I’m almost finished packing *me*. Imagine packing for 52 days. I need “bike clothes,” both fair weather and for the rain and cold. I need civilian clothes. Finally, there is bike stuff to be packed: cycling shoes, inner tubes, an extra tire, tools, an extra chain, water bottles, my mini repair stand; you get the idea. Oh yes, several pounds of sun block, butt balm, and assorted toiletries. The kicker? It all has to fit into one duffel bag, not more than 35 pounds.

Here’s your game for today. Identify as many things as you can in the top and bottom of the duffle. I’ll get you started. In the top, the regular cycling clothes are on the left, the cold weather ones on the right, and civies on the middle. My helmet is squished in. Now for the bottom. (Remember how you learned to make images bigger by double clicking on them? Now is probably a good time to do that.) In the bottom, can you find: a spare tire, a spare tube, cycling shoes, an extra set of cycling cleats, prescription medications, butt cream, band aids, a bungie cord, toothpaste, and a disposable razor.

How many did you get right?
10, you should be doing the ride, not me.
9, you know your cycling gear, but missed one of the hard ones.
8, a solid “B” you probably thought the thing labeled “Continentals” was a dead snake and wondered why I packed it.
7. what can I say? In “The Science of Food,” this might be a “B.” Especially if you did something “nice” for the professor. = : - o No, not that! I was thinking of something academic like putting that really illegible lecture into PowerPoint. (So many to chose from).
6, Congratulations, you identified all the noncycling items. It’s not your fault that you don’t know what cleats look like.
5. Ok, you need extra credit. Go back to the top of the back and correctly identify three items. 3+5 = 8, you’ve gotten a “B”. (You can express your gratitude by bringing me cookies or something.)
Less than 5? I’m sure that none of you got less than 5.

After lunch, I’m going to take my beater bike and ride the canal’s tow path. As you know, I’ve ridden next to the canal dozens and dozens of times. But I don’t think I’ve ridden the actual tow path all year. It’s totally shaded, in some places has the river on one side and the canal on the other, and one can’t ride very fast on it. That will be good for me.

Added in Edit How fast and how far don't matter on a day like today. It was an absolutely glorious day on the canal. Everybody knew it and everyone was there. Kyaks of every color, extended families hiking or walking, lovers hand in hand eyes for nothing else, fat ladies wobbling by, city kids blazing by on their WalMart Huffy's, people on horse back, little kids with training wheels on their first bike, maybe their first ride. If so, it will be hard to beat.

Ride, Just Ride

It was a glorious day to ride. Just ride. No training goal, no time constraints, nothing but the bike and the road. It was warm, the mid-sixties, the first time this year I’ve ridden without leg warmers or a wind jacket. The sky was full of Simpsons’ cloulds. The ‘bent took me out to the country. Once you pass the little town of Neshanic, the country gets very rural with horses, cows, and Victorian houses. My path took be down to River Road, another route from my childhood. Duke Island Park is on the other side of the river. We had lots of picnics there, the folks playing pinochle and us kids taking the flat bottom boat out on the shallow river. It was a special place. As for River Road itself, Bob and I, and maybe my cousin Jack, or next door neighbor, Tom, would ride out here after dinner. On our ten speeds. 7 miles out and 7 miles back as I remember it. Then I rode through Raritan and Somerville to my folks’ house. Mom was at Bingo, but Dad was home and made me lunch. I showed him how to find the blog on his computer. From there it was through South Bound Brook, Canal Rd., and home. 47 miles at 16.3 mph ave.

Graduation Day

You do remember that I'm the pedaling professor. Today is my favorite day of the academic year- Graduation! On Graduation Day, everybody is proud, happy, or just relieved that it's finally over. The faculty gets paid to sit in the sun and look scholarly, the grads get to bounce the beach ball around during the speeches, and the families get to crane their necks and cheer. The picture is of my friend George, giving his daughter Jen her diploma. Faculty giving diplomas to their children is a Rutgers tradition. The day that I gave Chris his diploma was my most memorable day at Rutgers. To many of you, the signing of the Alma Mater is one of those silly traditions. But Rutgers' Alma Mater is derived from a colonial drinking song. We all stand up and sing it at the end of the ceremony and then the academic year is over. Whew....

Why I Ride

Tonight I had dinner at Promises Culinary School. It was a "themed" event, "From Out Mothers' Kitchens" a tasting dinner of Mothers' recipes made by students at the culinary school or brought by guests. The venue was the culinary school, so we ate, as it were, "in the kitchen." The story of the food was told and then it was served by students in white chef's hats and starched chef's jackets. It was good eats and good company. The recipes are wonderful, but it is the students who are the success stories. They are the folks who turned their lives around when they were given the chance. Many of these folk start by being served in the soup kitchen, progress to learning how to cook at the culinary school, and ultimately get jobs at Promises Caterers or other restaurants in New Brunswick. They are why I ride. Your donations change their lives... For them, I thank you.

Say Bye to My Bike

My bike leaves for San Francisco tomorrow. In 11 days, I'll go and join it. I've been in a mixed state of excitement -and anxiety for everything that can go wrong. The (erroneous) mind set is that if one thinks of everything is wrong, one can plan to prevent it. This is just like the doomed-to-failure attempt to make something "fool proof." Fools are just too ingenious. So, I'm forgetting about all the stuff that can go wrong. When the bike went in the box, a lot of anxiety went with it too.

One of my big decisions was how to get the bike to San Francisco - riding it there was not an option. I've taken bikes with me when I fly. That usually works well, except that this time I have connecting flights and don't want to risk it. My local bike shop would charge !!$150!! to pack it and ship it. I explored other options. FedEx* charges ~$35 if I pack it and bring it to their depot. So I spent a couple of hours this afternoon cleaning, lubricating, breaking down, and wrapping my bike in bubble wrap. Then came the hard part. getting it into the box. Fortunately, my neighbor, Seth (also a cyclist) was out and responded to my call for help. It's always easier to *push* some else's bike. So I fit it in the box the best I could, Seth gave it a good push, and then we taped like crazy before it popped out.

*FedEx, why FedEx? FedEx is famous for its ability to track parcels. When the Centers of Disease Control distributes bacteria that cause disease, it uses FedEx so that it knows where they are at all times. If it’s good enough for bacteria, it’s good enough for my bike.

Finally, a brief tour of my fully pimped-out carbon fiber Motobecane Immortal Pro. It’s been customized with a front carrier to hold a day’s worth of stuff. The aerodynamic mirror is essential to know how fast that big dog is gaining on me. There is, of course, the red handlebar tape to match the red “Motobecane” on the down tube, my red helmet, my red glove, my red jersey, and the red detailing on my cycling shoes. Who says that men don’t know how to accessorize?

The cycle computer really is a computer. It has GPS to tell me where I am, measures speed, distance, heart rate, cadence (RPM), % grade (which I’d probably rather not know in the Rockies), # feet climbed and # feet descent (these are always magically equal on rides that start and end at home), time of sunrise, time of sunset, clock time, ride time and the day of the year according to the Gregorian calander. All of these data download into m PC for further analysis or superimposition on GoogleEarth.

Moving toward the back of the bike is the special “male friendly” saddle. We’re all adults, we know what it’s designed to protect. There is always hope ; - )
Finally there is the dual water bottle holder situated behind the saddle so as to not cause additional drag. It holds two (red, of course) water bottles.

Rebecca Rocks!

Today Rebecca received her Master of Science in Teaching at Fordham University's Rose Hill Campus in the Bronx. Mom and Dad are so proud. Rebecca accomplished this while working as a math and science middle school teacher at the Center School in upper Manhattan. Our girl child has always been bright and fiercely independent. Rebecca finished high school in 3 years, used the extra year at Rutgers, where she may have set a record for number of scientific papers published by and undergraduate and then went on to do a few years in a lab at Yale. Having decided that academic science was not her thing, Rebecca was awarded a State of New York Teaching Fellowship. The fellows teach full time while earning their MST. And that's what she did. Rebecca earned her MST. There are lots of lucky middle schoolers out there. Rebecca Rocks!

And now a word from our ride:
In two weeks, I'll be on the ride! But I've lost that "all jock, all the time" feeling. I think that once I had it (the feeling) I backed off, but there is still time to work on mental toughness, ride another couple of hundred miles, start (yes, start) doing situps, work on upper body strength, get a haircut, and chew some nails.

This morning I rode a quick (15.7 mph) 15 miles along Canal Road in weather that was cool and crisp. The birds were singing, the sun dappled through the trees to make never ending patterns on the pavement, and the road kill count was an amazingly low one. And yes, YES, YES, Courtylous Lane, the most pot hole-filled, lose gravelled, bumpy, bone jarring direct route from my house to Canal Road HAS BEEN PAVED! I know it's not a big deal to you, but for the last two years, I've been going two miles out of my way to avoid Courtylous. But then, that means that my rides just got two miles shorter, which is bad for training, right?

One last shout out: HORAY FOR REBECCA!

Last Century

I was born in the middle of the last century. Just thought I’d throw that in, even though this entry is about my last 100 mile ride (or “century” in cycle ling) before the trip. I drove to my folks’ house in Bridgewater and set off north on Rt 206. It’s pretty much all up hill going north; it took my 4 hours to ride 50 miles out, and 3 hours to ride back. It’s a route I’d driven (and thought too long) many times taking Chris and then Matt to Boy Scout camp.

There were many childhood memories along the way. “Wild West City” is still there. Bob and my cousins John and Dave would go there to play cowboy. We’d ride on a stage coach and “bad guys” would jump out and ambush it. A gun fight ensued. The good guys always won. We also got to lock each other up in the jail. My “Uncle” Bernie’s Hillside Lounge couldn’t be seen from the road, but is still there about half a mile up Hillside. Uncle Bernie isn’t doing so well, he’s in the VA hospital. “Little Bernie” is behind the bar now. I didn’t stop…. Lake Hopatcong (see pix) was the site of water daring and bravery. I can remember jumping into the lake off a platform that must have been a gazillion feet high. Well, I was little, and it was big, maybe 10 feet high. The only disappointment of the trip was that I couldn’t eat at The Chatterbox. It was at the 48 mile mark and looks cool, I always wanted to stop there. But there is a big sign on the front door- NO CLEATS OF ANY KIND. Cycling shoes have cleats, so I took them off, thinking my fashionable “American Cycling League” socks would save the day. Then there was another sign, “NO SHOES, NO SHIRT, NO SERVICE. Damn, never thought that would apply to me. So I left, found a nice dinner further down the road, had a nice lunch, and tipped big.

The scenery is quite lovely; horse country fades into forest and then farm. The Northern part of the state is very rural. If you were swept away by aliens and then dropped here, you’d never guess you were in New Jersey.

Food for Thought

One can't ride more than an hour or so using the glycogen stored in muscle, so "on the bike" nutrition becomes a critical issue. Cyclists endlessly debate the pros and cons of Gatorade vs Endurex vs Acclerade vs coffee with two shots of espresso and lots of cream. I have a different take to this. The key things on the bike are energy (i.e. calories) and electrolytes (i.e. salt). That's why Spam is the food of choice for this endurance cyclist. It's high in fat so there is a lot of energy. It's also high in salt, so that takes care of the electrolytes. It also comes in a variety of formats to break the boredom and for ease of use. There is the classical can with it's flip top opening. Just grab a fork (or a tire lever) and dig in. This format can also be use used to grease the bike chain in a pinch. My favorite is Spray-on Spam. The can fits in the bottle cage, you can spray it directly into your mouth, and it's good for charging up without stopping. You can also spray it at any dogs that are chasing you. They stop to eat, and you get away! To round things out, I love to start my day with green eggs and Spam...

I've cut back to riding every other day. But tomorrow will be a ride all day day. Rain cancels.

p.s. I took the picture with my phone! So many functions, so little time to learn them all.

Donations

Hey ya'll, it's Chris here with a public service announcement: The "donate online" link on the right side of the blog, which was supposed to redirect you to paypal, has been broken, well, probably since I set this thing up.

It's fixed now, so if you haven't donated yet, now is a good time to use the new working link. Also, my dad is too classy to mention this, but don't forget that every cent you donate goes directly to Elijah's Promise, and not to fund the cost of the ride itself.

20 days to go!

Guess I'm Ready

Today I completed the second day of my "back-to-back" rides, this time going down to Willingboro to see Bob and Karen. Without going through the local geography, or back story, my detour through downtown Trenton reminded me of why the governor's mansion is in Princeton. (Is there another state when the Governor's mansion is not in the capital city?) It was a cold and gray day, but Bob had lots of route suggestions, and Karen made me a lot lunch. The return ride was punctuated (semi-pun) by three flats. The first one was overdue and gave me the opportunity to demonstrate my pit-crew precision. The second one was annoying. The third was a challenge, since, believing in Murphy, I'd packed two spare tubes- yes with three flats. Fortunately, I was able to find the puncture site on one of the tubes, patch it, and limp home. It was good to be home. 93 miles, 15.4 mph. They say if you can ride long rides two days in a row, you're ready for the trip. Guess I'm ready.

Riding in the rain

What's it like to ride in the rain? Today I contemplated that question as I rode 80 miles. There were no other bikes on the road, only rain.... Go figure.

In a Zen monastery there is a zendo, or mediation chapel, where zazen (the sitting meditation) is practiced. During zazen, the Teacher walks among the monks carrying a stick. If a monk starts to drift off, he may ask the teacher to hit him with the stick so as to bring back his focus. (It's a dream of mine to bring this pedagogical technique to Rutgers.) At any rate, a young novice asks the Teacher what it feels like. The Teacher replies, "It's a stick. I hit you with it. It hurts."

That's what it's like to ride in the rain.

Fundraising and big news from Chris

The month's donation sheet came from Elijah's Promise today. We've reached $9,000. I'm not sure where we're supposed to be at this point. It's pretty far from $38,000, but will provide 3600 meals. Guess the plate is half full! Seriously, tell your friends and neighbors about this epic quest, send them to the site, ask them to donate.

Well, with food prices going up, it may not be 3600 meals. I did my grocery shopping today and broke the $200 mark for the first time ever. That and $40 worth of gas to fill my little Toyota Matrix suggests that the economy really is tanking.

The really big news- Chris has accepted a position with a law firm in Denver! He won't have to rent that big yellow truck and move again. I'll miss him, but with that new salary, he can fly me out, we'll ski, we'll im, we'll talk on the phone. All is well. And I've promised not to break anything next time we ski. (He says he'll make me take a lesson).

Chris is the man behind this blog's green curtain. If he doesn't want to share the news with the world, this paragraph will be gone by tomorrow. (Really Chris, it's ok to be the Adam Smith to my blog).

It's late. I'm going to ride 80-100 miles tomorrow in the rain. Need to go to bed.

Bye.

Cross country hussle

I could do the ride in 9.2 days! Bear with me on this. Today was a good, and I assure you, not a delusional riding day. My after-work “quickie” was quick- 22 miles at 17.2 m.p.h. That’s pretty fast, so being the scientist that I am, I did the math. 3,800 miles divided by 17.2 mph is 220 hours, which divided by 24 hours is 9.2 days. Ok, so sleep would be nice. Change the calculation to riding 12 hours per day and we’re up to 18 days for the crossing. So what will I do with those other 34 days?

Blogger madness- double clicking on the picture (remember yesterday’s lesson) will help you through this. Chris has given me a tool to data mine my blog. As of today, we’ve had over 300 visitors! Yipee. But a closer analysis shows that 52% of the people who come to the page leave in 5 seconds- the equivalent of a cyberspace wrong number. (Maybe I shouldn’t have used “free Viagra” as one of my Google identifiers.) Interestingly, 34% of visits last longer than an hour. Is there that much thought provoking content in the blog, or do people just leave their computer on while they leave to do their laundry? Finally, I can tell how many people are new and how many visitors return every day. There are four or five regulars. Thanks for coming back, Bob. Your coffee cup is on the counter.

Get the most out of your blog experience

Here are a few hints to increase your blogging pleasure as you return to my site again and again.

-If you want to see a bigger version of a picture in a posting, double click on it! Yes, go to the picture of my bike, double clip, and see the pattern of the carbon fiber, the exquisite lettering of "immortal pro", and the very cool wheels. You can also do this with pictures of people, places, or other things that are less interesting than my bike.

-The map. The map is chock full of information that you'll really enjoy as you watch me travel across the country. First, the little figure on the bicycle is me. : - ) On May 29, that figure will jump on a plane and reappear on the West coast, from which it will move, ever so slowly, to the East coast, chronicling my day to day movement. It is, of course, much farther on the ground than on the screen. Other neat features- if you click on "terr" on the upper right hand corner of the map, the terrain will pop up and you will see all the mountains and valleys of the journey. If you use the + - slider, you can zoom in or out to see how incredibly high those mountains really are. You can use the magic hand to pull the map in various directions so that you can zoom in to the place where I am. Go ahead, practice before all the fun begins. Oh yes, on the bottom where it says "View larger map," quess what happens when you double click on it?
That's right.

Things are still very pressured at school, and at home, but Matt is officially back from school and just got a job! There is rain in the forecast for Friday, but I'm still planning on back-to-back long rides for Friday and Saturday. I hate to see my bike get wet, but it's a sure bet that there will be rain at some point during the trip.

Face of America 2008

It sounds like a cliché, but it really is a privilege to ride with disabled vets, active duty, and retired military. There is a sense of community and responsibility for each other that is hard to describe. It’s so impressive to see warriors without arms or legs gut it out going up a hill. And to see everyone’s positive attitude, although it was strange when they kept calling me “Sir.” (as in “Good morning, sleep well last night?” Yes, *Sir* I slept very well and hope you did too, Sir.”) I made some small contributions by fixing a soldiers bike that was stuck in the hardest gear. He was ready to quit, but some oil on the chains, derailleur, and cable was all it took to get his “donated” rust bucket back on the road. At the end of the ride, I broke down a bike for shipping and boxed it up; have done that more than a few times. The ride had some organizational problems. The worst of these was to have us ride in “units” that traveled at the speed of the slowest riders. This was excruciatingly slow and caused some accidents for people who couldn’t keep their bikes upright going 2.3 mph up hills. This brings us to Farrood, the cyclist in the picture. It just hurt him too badly to go that slow, so he broke formation and took off. We followed him and got yelled at, “You’re leaving men behind!” “No, sir (see, I learned the magic word) we’re protecting this soldier who’s going ahead.” So we formed the unit pictured above. One man rode ahead of Farrood to watch for traffic and road hazards. One man road with Farrood and gave him a boost up the hills. Deb and I took up the rear, so that cars could see us first and Deb could alert the rest, “Car back!” The two kids came from out of nowhere and were like the crew in ET. It was, at times, hard to keep up with Farrood. Farrood is a rare man. He works for Special Forces, was just promoted to Major, and is still active military. Farrood is Iraqi and has seen three uncles and eleven cousins killed because of his work with the U.S. He applied for asylum in the U.S. two years ago and still hasn’t heard…

I’m swamped and getting a little stressed out. Before leaving in 22 days, I have to get everything at work squared away during the busiest time of the academic year. Then there are all the items that go into “running a house” while I’m away. Bills still need to be paid, mail dealt with, the cat cared for, etc. Matt can help with only some of these things. There is also prep for the trip itself, more training, ordering extra tubes and tires, taking care of getting my bike shipped to the West Coasts, making some enhancements to the blog, etc. So I may fall behind in keeping this current. I know, I shouldn’t whine…..

Blog Break

Tomorrow I'm going down to Bethesda, MD with Deb to ride in a WORLD T.E.A.M. SPORTS (see previous blog) event. It starts Saturday, at the Capital Cresant Trail (see previous blog) and ends at Gettysburg, Pa on Sunday. So I won't be blogging util Monday or Tuesday. It will be moving and humbling to ride with wounded vets. Deb got her own wound and almost didn't get to ride. Last night she fell off her bike, generating a dislocated fracture (or fractured dislocation), a two inch lacertion, and the sacrifice of her new gloves that were cut off by the EMT. At any rate, the Doc said she was still good to ride.

Today's trivia question: Guess how many miles I rode in April? Find the answer at the bottom of April 29 post. Hint: The milage is excessive. For the rest of the month, I'm going to work on strengthening my core, learning some yoga stretches, and doing some back-to-back 85 mile rides.

p.s. the pictured finger isn't Deb's. She wouldn't give me the finger. = : - o

There are some images from the rides that I’d like to share.

My first ride, from Boston to NYC had a “ride out” at 6 a.m., we had to be there at 5 a.m., so I checked out of my hotel at 4:30 a.m. You could look down every street a see a rider in the darkness, with his duffle and his bike, heading to the starting line. I see that moment whenever I hear “Peace Train:” “Out on the edge of darkness, there lies a peace train..” Coffee is a diuretic, so they didn’t serve it at the start. There was a Starbucks two miles out on the route. The site of 80 bicycles outside the store is memorable. Two final images- riding into Madison Square Garden, and the victory lap down 8th Ave.

The Charity Trek Rides are full of great visuals. I have a mental picture of a general store in New Hampshire with lots of cyclists sitting on the porch eating ice cream. It tasted great after 100 mile riding. The next day’s picture was funnier. The general store 8 miles from camp sold beer. Mmmm, beer. So we all sit on the porch with a cool one. The store owner throws us out telling us that he’s allowed to sell, but not serve. So we defiantly sit on the curb across the street. The Constable drives up. He waves, laughs, and drives away.

RAGBRAI is the (Des Moines) Register’s Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. Can you picture me sitting on a curb with an Iowan discussing commodity crops? He just couldn’t get his arms around the fact that NJ has no commodities. There are 15,000 riders in RAGBRAI. Imagine and older Amish man, coveralls, beard, big hat, sitting on a rocker on his from porch and watching us all go by. (They say that there are two parades at RAGBRAI; the riders watching the locals go by and the locals watching the riders go by.

I’ve ridden with WORLD TEAM SPORTS many times. The first ride was on the one year anniversary of 9/11. It started at “the pit” and finished at the Pentagon’s blast site. Imagine, outside our (me and my long time friend and sagina, Rosanne) window, right outside our window, was the memorial twin beams of light going up to the heavens. A Danish photographer asked if she could come in to take her picture from our window. A picture of those twin beams hangs in my kitchen. The next year Rosanne and I did the ride on a tandem. Can you picture an 80-something Polish war vet who was a double amputee pulling in behind us and asking if he could draft for a while? I’ve gotten pretty far down in this post without mentioning the heroes of WTS. They are combat personnel who’ve returned from their tours minus limb(s). These folks are real athletes. Most use handcycles and have chiseled upper bodies that would put David to shame. One guy flipped over going down the entrance ramp to a highway. I was freaked. He was stoic. “You grab under my armpits. You grab my stumps. Put me on the bike.” And off he went. It’s pretty humbling to be on a WORLD TEAM SPORTS ride.