It's cold. I don't do very well with the cold. Not that I can't handle it, I just can't motivate myself to get out of bed in the morning. I like being warm under my blanket. I dare say it's one of my favourite things in life. It has killed my riding though. At first I didn't really miss it. I had gone out a few times after completing the MS ride, but as the mornings dropped into the 30's, I felt less and less compelled to wake up and ride my bike.
My work schedule has aided the cold. They've teamed up to become my bike's axis of evil. My boss has me working anywhere from noon until midnight during the day and I never feel settled enough to figure out a steady eating pattern, let alone when I'm going to ride my bike.
I didn't miss it. I was happy just being lazy. I had put three pounds back on. I was eating like crap. I was reveling in it. I even brought my bike up stairs because it was "cluttering" our hall way.
I miss it. Thursday, I had come home from work, watched some TV, polished of a pint of ice cream. I came to bed, tired from a long day and a slight food coma. I crawled into bed, wrapped myself up in a blanket and put my head down. The second my head hit the pillow I couldn't stop thinking about riding my bike. It kept me up for three hours. I was jonesing for it.
I have off on Fridays, but the day after my longing to ride my bike, Jen and I were going to Jim Thorpe PA. We drove up there, and on the way we were talking about how good the surrounding land looked for riding. When we got off the Turn Pike my fears were confirmed. The roads were not only as good as we had though, they were better.
We got into town and got out of the car. I couldn't get over how cold it was. It was easily ten degrees cooler than when we had left. We started walking up Hill Rd. Very direct naming. It was a nice, long hill that went on further than we cared to walk. It was very cold and I couldn't help but think about how warm I would be if I were killing myself riding up this hill. I was craving it. I had talked to Jen about bringing our bikes a week earlier, but she shot down the idea a day before.
We walked back down to the town and stated up another street. Off of that street was the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. Another street, much like Hill Rd only it must have been a 20% grade for further than I could see. I wanted to see how far I could make it up on my bike before I threw up.
As we headed down the Street towards the bottom of town we came to an out door store. They carried mountain bikes so we had a look around. I saw the craziest cassette; the largest cog was the size of a pie plate. I thought it was ridiculous until I remembered about the hill I had just seen. It made total sense to me then.
I've wanted to ride my bike all day today. I can't, because it's raining something fierce. I thought about just tossing a rain jacket on and going out any way, but it's really raining. And very gusty. I knew it was going to rain, but I also know that tomorrow will be in the 60's and dry. "Awesome!" I think. "I'll ride before I go to work tomorrow!" Nope. My boss called to let me know that the morning guy called out and that he needs me to work. I wont be home until seven and it's dark at that point. Damn it.
Now I'm desperate enough to use my trainer. It's not right riding a bike inside while watching TV or looking out your window.
I'm moving as soon as I can convince Jen.
25 October, 2008
03 October, 2008
Oh yeah, I did it
Thanks to work, I haven't gotten around to actually writing the post that was the main point of most of the other posts. But I finally have a day off and gosh darn it, I'm going to write me a post about my MS ride.
We ended up doing 45miles instead of 75miles for a few reasons.
1) Jen and Niko didn't want to do 75miles/wake up that early. They both have backs worse than mine and they didn't think they would make it the whole way.
2) Maria C. and her friend Erica were riding with us, and Erica was very green. Like barely knew how to shift green.
3) Jen never booked our hotel room because she thought it was going to rain and we wouldn't do the ride. That did work out in the end for us.
Here comes the lengthy, descriptive part.
Jen and I woke up at 6am and started making plans about how we were all going to get down there/meet up. Niko, Maria C. and Erica all wanted to go out to breakfast. I love me some going out for breakfast, but one thing I've learned is that it's really not a good idea to ride after eating something you've never ate before riding before. If it makes you sick, you're kind of fucked for the rest of the ride. So Jen and I decided to eat at home, or in her case, bring her breakfast with her and drink it before we start (she drinks a shake that she makes every-single-morning, without fail). I had a heaping bowl of oatmeal with walnuts, raisins and honey and washed it down with a protein shake.
Two weeks before the ride we took back the bike rack we had for Jen's car and exchanged it for one for my car. It's a Thule and I can safely say that Swedish engineers should all be put down. Between Ikea furniture and this bike rack, they've proven their ability to cause frustration like no other. I think it's their way of getting back at everyone who ever made fun of them and then some. But it did its job and got our bikes down there without anything falling off. That, and I now have a proper looking Subaru. They just look better with a bike rack.
The starting point for the ride was a parking lot in Hamonton NJ. The start time was between 10am and 10:30am and after everyone had registered we were just kind of sitting there and waiting for the start. Once Jen realized what we were waiting for she kindly told us there is no start; you just leave before 10:30a. Jen and I hopped on our bikes and rode up to the start. I looked back to make sure we had everyone and sure enough, we didn't. A few minutes later Niko and Maria C. ride up and Erica is walking her bike. Erica looks very uncomfortable. She struggles to get clipped in, but once she does we're off. Half way down the street I look back again and she and Maria C. are nowhere to be seen. We wait. We make our first turn and Head down to join with the people who have been riding since the early morning. I hang back to make sure Erica is doing okay. She's in her little ring up from and her small cog in the back. I tried explaining what was going to happen, but I think it was lost on her. I rode up to Niko and Jen and explain the situation. Niko drops back and Jen and I ride on. Maria C. has worked her way up in the mass of riders and we slowly catch up with her. We were keeping an awkward pace trying to not drop Niko and Erica, but Not go 10mph. We finally caught up with Maria C. who was waiting up and explained how much Erica was struggling. Maria said she would drop back and they would all catch up with us. Famous last words.
The ground was still wet in a lot of spots at the beginning of the ride. That, in combination with the mixture of people who were comfortable on bikes and people who were not, made for a messy situation. One woman fell when we started moving from a light. She was kind of to my left and started trying to move before the people in front of us had started to move. She went down and just took the four people around her down with her. At the next light, a guy in front of us almost dumped it coming to a stop at a light. I don't know how he saved it, but he did. I had never been in a group that large before, and I was starting to get nervous. Jen was starting to get annoyed. She had enough of riding slow trying not to drop our friends and tired of the people around us. She also was worried her back wouldn't hold up to the five hours it would take us to finish the ride at that pace. She took off. I followed.
After weaving in and out of people doing 10mph in the middle of the road, we finally got an open stretch of road. Jen was pulling me and these three guys started drafting us. They, like any guy who rides with Jen, started busting her balls about being a girl and the pace she was making. They tried to pass us. After a mile, they shut up and just drafted off us. They eventually offered to pull us and we rode with them to the first rest stop.
Pulling up to the rest stop, Jen and I talked it over and decided not to stop. We wanted to wait for Niko and crew but we knew if we did that we would end up doing the exact same thing and decided to just keep riding. We were also just getting warmed up and it seemed like a silly time to stop. We kept riding with our newly formed group. As we were pulling away we heard the most awful noise you can hear on a bike, someone going down. I caught the last seconds of the fall, and it did not look good. The sound was of metal breaking and that terrible body slapping the ground noise that I know all too well. The rider was a few hundred feet back, but the sound was so loud that Jen thought that I had gone down behind her. She was visibly shaken for about a half hour after the crash. It's scary stuff and I hope the guy is alright.
We continued pushing hard with our group. We riding around 18-20mph and It was a blast. They did a lot of leading and I finally got my shot at the front. I'm not sure if it was adrenaline, or I was determined, but I really cranked the pace. I would look back periodically and see a gap, look down and see I was doing 23mph, then back off a little. I loved every minute of it.
While enjoying my lead, we ran into some traffic. Once we got close enough we saw a bunch of cops and a ambulance. We knew it wasn't going to be good. There was a biker on a stretcher surrounded by medics and there was freshly wiped up blood all around. The cop actually made us stop not three feet from the guy. I couldn't look and just kept looking straight, waiting for the cop to give us the okay to go. The whole thing took me out of my riders high.
Shortly after the other guys wanted to take the lead. Maybe they wanted me to slow down. We followed them to the second rest stop and we all went in to take a breather. There was water for refills, mini cliff bars and fruit abound. We rested and text Niko to see where they were. We probably waited a little too long, but we left with two of the three guys we were riding with. The other guy left a few minutes before all of us.
Back on the road we were trying to get our legs back in us. We finally got back in it and we were coming up on the impossible: tiny hills... in south Jersey! I didn't know they had hills of any kind in south Jersey. I wouldn't really call them hills, more like a false flat, but it was slowing people drastically. Both guys took a turn at the front, then Jen before I got another run at it. I must have really been turning the screws on these guys because we dropped them. I don't know when, and I feel kind of bad about it, but I knew the end was close and I got a second wind. That second wind was quickly followed by a first crash a few miles later, and Jen's back was bothering her so we pulled into the next rest stop.
Jen decided to try Niko and Maria again and she got a hold of them. They were at the second rest stop and they hadn't seen Erica since before the first. They were even waiting a half hour at each one for her, but never saw her. As Jen hung up, it started to spritz. I was happy we had made it as far as we did without rain. I was also a little nervous because I had never rode in the rain before. There was only 13miles left, I wasn't about to stop.
Shortly after the rest stop we got stuck in traffic again. I don't even remember why, But it was okay because it gave me a chance to get myself together and recover. The sun had come back out as we started to turn into residential streets just outside of Ocean City. I remember one guy saying "You're almost done, it's all downhill from here!" I remember that because to get into Ocean City, there are two bridges. Arch shaped bridges. Coming up on them, they seemed like they were going to work me a little, especially after riding 40miles to get to them. As we got to the base there were just masses of people struggling. I remember seeing once guy walking his bike up and everyone else head down, breathing heavily and looking awful. There was a guy further up wearing a full kit, standing and tacking his way up the bridge. He looked like a sprinter in a mountain stage, just completely spent. The whole thing looked like some kind of death ride.
Jen and I motored up the first bridge at like 15mph spitting out "on your left" the whole time without sounding out of breath. When we got to the guy standing the whole way, he was still tacking and I remember his face as I charged by effortlessly. It was pure disgust. The second hill was for of the same. Lots of slow moving, suffering people with Jen and I breezing by and them hating us for it. I guess I'm not as bad at hills as I thought I was. I'm also glad I make an effort to ride them on a regular basis, those people looked miserable.
After the bridges it's just an easy ride into town and towards the boardwalk. I was so psyched to be at the end that I was still doing 20mph and passing people like crazy. A few turns from the finish I see a girl that looks like Erica. I shot by her and slammed on the breaks because it was Erica. I was flabbergasted. Jen and I were passing people the whole time. We were only passed by four guys the entire time and we didn't stop for more than a half hour total. We were drenched from the rain and sweat and we looked like we had just rode 45miles. Erica was completely dry, make-up still perfect, hair not messed up at all, and was doing 13mph when I "caught up" to her. She had even dropped her chain at one point, and couldn't shift out of her big ring up front because she didn't know how. She claimed to have not stopped the entire time and that's how she made it so far without anyone seeing her. I smell SAG wagon, but who am I to say?
The last turn has a bunch of people lined up from there to the finish line, and they're all cheering you on and shaking cowbells and such. It was weird having all these people cheer for me as I crossed the line. I was so focused on riding that It was almost like they weren't there. As I crossed the line I kept looking back for Jen who was about a hundred yards back. In all my excitement I just kept riding hard until they told me to slow down at the line. I really wanted to cross the line with her. She was the reason I wanted to do the ride in the first place. She was the person I trained almost every time I went out this summer. She and I had worked together for 45miles and I, like an ass, was more concerned with me finishing. She wasn't upset about it, and I'm not sure if she even noticed. But in retrospect, I wish I would have crossed the line with her. Oh well, there's always next ride for that.
So there you have it. It wasn't 75miles, but I'm kind of glad about that. My back hurt. I don't know if I would have been able to move the next day had I done 75. I'm also not sure if I would want to. 50miles on a bike is about my limit at the moment. I'm okay with that. Maybe in the future I'll want to do longer rides, but at the moment, I think I'll be alright with where I'm at.
It's getting cool here now. In the morning it's 45* or lower. I want to keep riding, but it's hard to motive myself. I haven't been on my bike all week because of time, rain and cold. I miss it. I'm actually going for a ride as soon as I'm done typing. I can't wait. Really. I'm going to stop typing right now.
We ended up doing 45miles instead of 75miles for a few reasons.
1) Jen and Niko didn't want to do 75miles/wake up that early. They both have backs worse than mine and they didn't think they would make it the whole way.
2) Maria C. and her friend Erica were riding with us, and Erica was very green. Like barely knew how to shift green.
3) Jen never booked our hotel room because she thought it was going to rain and we wouldn't do the ride. That did work out in the end for us.
Here comes the lengthy, descriptive part.
Jen and I woke up at 6am and started making plans about how we were all going to get down there/meet up. Niko, Maria C. and Erica all wanted to go out to breakfast. I love me some going out for breakfast, but one thing I've learned is that it's really not a good idea to ride after eating something you've never ate before riding before. If it makes you sick, you're kind of fucked for the rest of the ride. So Jen and I decided to eat at home, or in her case, bring her breakfast with her and drink it before we start (she drinks a shake that she makes every-single-morning, without fail). I had a heaping bowl of oatmeal with walnuts, raisins and honey and washed it down with a protein shake.
Two weeks before the ride we took back the bike rack we had for Jen's car and exchanged it for one for my car. It's a Thule and I can safely say that Swedish engineers should all be put down. Between Ikea furniture and this bike rack, they've proven their ability to cause frustration like no other. I think it's their way of getting back at everyone who ever made fun of them and then some. But it did its job and got our bikes down there without anything falling off. That, and I now have a proper looking Subaru. They just look better with a bike rack.
The starting point for the ride was a parking lot in Hamonton NJ. The start time was between 10am and 10:30am and after everyone had registered we were just kind of sitting there and waiting for the start. Once Jen realized what we were waiting for she kindly told us there is no start; you just leave before 10:30a. Jen and I hopped on our bikes and rode up to the start. I looked back to make sure we had everyone and sure enough, we didn't. A few minutes later Niko and Maria C. ride up and Erica is walking her bike. Erica looks very uncomfortable. She struggles to get clipped in, but once she does we're off. Half way down the street I look back again and she and Maria C. are nowhere to be seen. We wait. We make our first turn and Head down to join with the people who have been riding since the early morning. I hang back to make sure Erica is doing okay. She's in her little ring up from and her small cog in the back. I tried explaining what was going to happen, but I think it was lost on her. I rode up to Niko and Jen and explain the situation. Niko drops back and Jen and I ride on. Maria C. has worked her way up in the mass of riders and we slowly catch up with her. We were keeping an awkward pace trying to not drop Niko and Erica, but Not go 10mph. We finally caught up with Maria C. who was waiting up and explained how much Erica was struggling. Maria said she would drop back and they would all catch up with us. Famous last words.
The ground was still wet in a lot of spots at the beginning of the ride. That, in combination with the mixture of people who were comfortable on bikes and people who were not, made for a messy situation. One woman fell when we started moving from a light. She was kind of to my left and started trying to move before the people in front of us had started to move. She went down and just took the four people around her down with her. At the next light, a guy in front of us almost dumped it coming to a stop at a light. I don't know how he saved it, but he did. I had never been in a group that large before, and I was starting to get nervous. Jen was starting to get annoyed. She had enough of riding slow trying not to drop our friends and tired of the people around us. She also was worried her back wouldn't hold up to the five hours it would take us to finish the ride at that pace. She took off. I followed.
After weaving in and out of people doing 10mph in the middle of the road, we finally got an open stretch of road. Jen was pulling me and these three guys started drafting us. They, like any guy who rides with Jen, started busting her balls about being a girl and the pace she was making. They tried to pass us. After a mile, they shut up and just drafted off us. They eventually offered to pull us and we rode with them to the first rest stop.
Pulling up to the rest stop, Jen and I talked it over and decided not to stop. We wanted to wait for Niko and crew but we knew if we did that we would end up doing the exact same thing and decided to just keep riding. We were also just getting warmed up and it seemed like a silly time to stop. We kept riding with our newly formed group. As we were pulling away we heard the most awful noise you can hear on a bike, someone going down. I caught the last seconds of the fall, and it did not look good. The sound was of metal breaking and that terrible body slapping the ground noise that I know all too well. The rider was a few hundred feet back, but the sound was so loud that Jen thought that I had gone down behind her. She was visibly shaken for about a half hour after the crash. It's scary stuff and I hope the guy is alright.
We continued pushing hard with our group. We riding around 18-20mph and It was a blast. They did a lot of leading and I finally got my shot at the front. I'm not sure if it was adrenaline, or I was determined, but I really cranked the pace. I would look back periodically and see a gap, look down and see I was doing 23mph, then back off a little. I loved every minute of it.
While enjoying my lead, we ran into some traffic. Once we got close enough we saw a bunch of cops and a ambulance. We knew it wasn't going to be good. There was a biker on a stretcher surrounded by medics and there was freshly wiped up blood all around. The cop actually made us stop not three feet from the guy. I couldn't look and just kept looking straight, waiting for the cop to give us the okay to go. The whole thing took me out of my riders high.
Shortly after the other guys wanted to take the lead. Maybe they wanted me to slow down. We followed them to the second rest stop and we all went in to take a breather. There was water for refills, mini cliff bars and fruit abound. We rested and text Niko to see where they were. We probably waited a little too long, but we left with two of the three guys we were riding with. The other guy left a few minutes before all of us.
Back on the road we were trying to get our legs back in us. We finally got back in it and we were coming up on the impossible: tiny hills... in south Jersey! I didn't know they had hills of any kind in south Jersey. I wouldn't really call them hills, more like a false flat, but it was slowing people drastically. Both guys took a turn at the front, then Jen before I got another run at it. I must have really been turning the screws on these guys because we dropped them. I don't know when, and I feel kind of bad about it, but I knew the end was close and I got a second wind. That second wind was quickly followed by a first crash a few miles later, and Jen's back was bothering her so we pulled into the next rest stop.
Jen decided to try Niko and Maria again and she got a hold of them. They were at the second rest stop and they hadn't seen Erica since before the first. They were even waiting a half hour at each one for her, but never saw her. As Jen hung up, it started to spritz. I was happy we had made it as far as we did without rain. I was also a little nervous because I had never rode in the rain before. There was only 13miles left, I wasn't about to stop.
Shortly after the rest stop we got stuck in traffic again. I don't even remember why, But it was okay because it gave me a chance to get myself together and recover. The sun had come back out as we started to turn into residential streets just outside of Ocean City. I remember one guy saying "You're almost done, it's all downhill from here!" I remember that because to get into Ocean City, there are two bridges. Arch shaped bridges. Coming up on them, they seemed like they were going to work me a little, especially after riding 40miles to get to them. As we got to the base there were just masses of people struggling. I remember seeing once guy walking his bike up and everyone else head down, breathing heavily and looking awful. There was a guy further up wearing a full kit, standing and tacking his way up the bridge. He looked like a sprinter in a mountain stage, just completely spent. The whole thing looked like some kind of death ride.
Jen and I motored up the first bridge at like 15mph spitting out "on your left" the whole time without sounding out of breath. When we got to the guy standing the whole way, he was still tacking and I remember his face as I charged by effortlessly. It was pure disgust. The second hill was for of the same. Lots of slow moving, suffering people with Jen and I breezing by and them hating us for it. I guess I'm not as bad at hills as I thought I was. I'm also glad I make an effort to ride them on a regular basis, those people looked miserable.
After the bridges it's just an easy ride into town and towards the boardwalk. I was so psyched to be at the end that I was still doing 20mph and passing people like crazy. A few turns from the finish I see a girl that looks like Erica. I shot by her and slammed on the breaks because it was Erica. I was flabbergasted. Jen and I were passing people the whole time. We were only passed by four guys the entire time and we didn't stop for more than a half hour total. We were drenched from the rain and sweat and we looked like we had just rode 45miles. Erica was completely dry, make-up still perfect, hair not messed up at all, and was doing 13mph when I "caught up" to her. She had even dropped her chain at one point, and couldn't shift out of her big ring up front because she didn't know how. She claimed to have not stopped the entire time and that's how she made it so far without anyone seeing her. I smell SAG wagon, but who am I to say?
The last turn has a bunch of people lined up from there to the finish line, and they're all cheering you on and shaking cowbells and such. It was weird having all these people cheer for me as I crossed the line. I was so focused on riding that It was almost like they weren't there. As I crossed the line I kept looking back for Jen who was about a hundred yards back. In all my excitement I just kept riding hard until they told me to slow down at the line. I really wanted to cross the line with her. She was the reason I wanted to do the ride in the first place. She was the person I trained almost every time I went out this summer. She and I had worked together for 45miles and I, like an ass, was more concerned with me finishing. She wasn't upset about it, and I'm not sure if she even noticed. But in retrospect, I wish I would have crossed the line with her. Oh well, there's always next ride for that.
So there you have it. It wasn't 75miles, but I'm kind of glad about that. My back hurt. I don't know if I would have been able to move the next day had I done 75. I'm also not sure if I would want to. 50miles on a bike is about my limit at the moment. I'm okay with that. Maybe in the future I'll want to do longer rides, but at the moment, I think I'll be alright with where I'm at.
It's getting cool here now. In the morning it's 45* or lower. I want to keep riding, but it's hard to motive myself. I haven't been on my bike all week because of time, rain and cold. I miss it. I'm actually going for a ride as soon as I'm done typing. I can't wait. Really. I'm going to stop typing right now.
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