It\u2019s been far too long since I\u2019ve updated my part of the Long Bike Back and all-of-the goings on.\u00a0 So let\u2019s start here:<\/p>\n
Since the end of trip I haven\u2019t stopped riding, but I must admit that cycling around town here has become far less interesting and more dangerous.\u00a0 I long for the open tarmac of Idaho, Wyoming and western Nebraska.\u00a0 I long for the days where nothing mattered more than getting on the bike and doing another century.\u00a0 I long for a new town, a new hotel room and a new face pouring me a beer.\u00a0 I am longing for new memories.<\/p>\n
Where I live is an amazing place, certainly not for its natural beauty or friendly people but for the access to art and opportunity for expression.\u00a0 I would however, trade all of it to get back out to the scorched earth of eastern Oregon or bask in big sky\u2019s of Idaho.<\/p>\n
Although I\u2019ve been riding, I\u2019m not clicking in as many miles as I\u2019d like to or perhaps should be.\u00a0 But here is a short rundown of a few of my favorite rides since October 2008.<\/p>\n
On our way out of Iowa I took a very nasty fall.\u00a0 Spraining my wrist, bashing my head against the cement highway, damaging my cherished bicycle and breaking the tray for my odometer.\u00a0 I had to use grey gaff tape to secure the odometer\/computer back in place, which held through the next six falls and 1200 miles.\u00a0 Sadly my tape work was no match for Southern Westchester, on one of my first rides back home, I crashed because my cleat slipped out of its pedal and I went back down for another asphalt groping.\u00a0 My left hip absorbing the brunt of the fall and leaving a gnarly bruise, I got up brushed off the stones, tar and broken glass and continued riding only to realize about a mile later that my computer the one that had logged all the miles and info since Boise had been lost.\u00a0 I was crushed.\u00a0 I spent days looking for it.\u00a0 In leaf piles, drainage vents, yards and driveways, anywhere I could think of along the route that morning.\u00a0 No luck.\u00a0 Emotionally I was split, I knew that this was very Zen* and in a way fitting, but at the same time, typical, sad and too much of Murphy\u2019s Law.<\/p>\n
*I only say Zen b\/c of a story Todd Coolman told me about Monks, who make sand art.\u00a0 After they feel a work is complete, they look at it, ponder it, enjoy it, then sweep it all away and move on to the next work.\u00a0 Exactly what we\u2019re doing here now.\u00a0 Moving on.<\/em><\/p>\n Not far from our home is where the oldest weekly ride starts called the Gimbels.\u00a0 The Gimbels is a 50mile or so part race, part rider get together.\u00a0 It was started in 1947 and leaves at 9:20 am every Sunday and most Saturdays regardless of season, rain or snow.\u00a0 Within the peloton you can hear multiple languages taunting each other, old friends re-connecting, re-hashing last week\u2019s battles, who sucked or who really soared and of course gear geeking.\u00a0 Anyway I\u2019ve ridden in the Gimbles a few times, once on my 29er which was a joke after 30 miles, but this past February, I decided to get up early and hit it.\u00a0 Despite the awful rain, I managed to complete the ride in about 2.5 hours.\u00a0 My gloves where like refrigerated wet towels, my clothes sticking to me like a layer of skin with icicles forming in the creases.\u00a0 It was horrible, but I felt like a hero and now I get to write about it.\u00a0 I giggled to myself most of the way that morning thinking about what I would say about the experience here on our LBB blog.\u00a0 Sadly this transcription pales in comparison to the heroic adventure I had concocted in my mind.\u00a0 Anyway last Sunday I rode in it again and it was pure joy, not to mention really fast, 28 mph at times!<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been doing far more off road riding which is much more enjoyable now.\u00a0 I can roll over obstacles I never could before and I\u2019m not falling nearly as much, which is also promising.\u00a0 With dreams of mounting a podium I joined the NYCMTB Team, but just when I was paying for my USA Cycling license I had some more health set backs for my back, which I have to allow to heal before I can compete.\u00a0 Honestly I would probably loose anyway, so where\u2019s the fun in that?\u00a0 Who am I kidding though it would be pretty sweat to ride around with a team on all the amazing trails here in the North East.\u00a0 Needless to say I\u2019m very disappointed but I\u2019ll get there.<\/p>\n A couple of weeks ago Julia and I got a private off road tour of the concord grape vineyards along the shores of Lake Erie.\u00a0 Pat Sheridan (our guide) took us through a maze of tractor lanes and picker trails that yielded fantastic and almost surreal vistas of lake Erie.\u00a0 Sweet ride and a great way to spend the third anniversary of my collision with the SUV that brought us here.<\/p>\n While down in Maryland a few weeks ago I rode with Julia and her father Len through Civil War battlefields at Antietam National Park.\u00a0 I love it there very much, the ugly beauty of the brown arid useless fields really rouse my imagination about what happened to make it the bloodiest single day battle of the great(?) war.<\/p>\n We wondered off the beaten path to find some delicious dirt that took us along the banks of Antietam creek.\u00a0 I almost ran over a turtle, I rarely get to see turtles, so I played with him\/her for the time it took my partners to catch up.\u00a0 I loved that turtle.\u00a0 To me the shell of a turtle is much like a bicycle, it pretty much has all you need to travel throughout the world.<\/p>\n Julia and I rode as part of the Aeolian ride, which was an awesome 90 minutes of cycling.\u00a0 The Aeolian ride is hard to explain, but in brief, we are wearing white nylon suits that (when filled with the air and wind generated from riding) balloon into different shapes, you can wear a rabbit, a droplet or a ghost.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very cool live motion performance art and something I had always wanted to be a part of. http:\/\/aeolian-ride.info\/<\/a><\/p>\n