blog (January, 2006)
Sweet Corn Challenge Ride
I rode 50 miles this morning in the Sweet Corn Challenge.
Three cars convened at the lake and joined their three mutually-friendly passengers.
We talked of routes. I chose one friend and 50 easy miles over the other friend and 100 fast miles (just back in the saddle, upcoming movement classes/rehearsals this week...)
Two of the cars travelled south: one carrying one person and bike; one carrying two persons and bikes. The other car stayed by the lake and was heard muttering about seagulls.
The former two cars convened, again, twenty minutes later, having southerned sufficiently their passengers.
This is not a race, reminded the instructions. Novel for us both. We dismounted at every water stop to quench and chew and chat (and grimace about thousands of plastic sportdrink bottles and no plan for their reclamation or decomposition.) We stopped at Metropark::Hinkley for a swim somewhere in the middle.
Meadowland and forestland smiling summer but eyeing nervously all of the new neighbors: sad castles, suburbanly sprawled.
Eddy's put on a very nice ride, but it was a bit bizarre and scary that in such heat the water was all you could drink at the waystations, and $2.50/bottle at the finish.
first crash on second fuji
Ed says he may have to ride some few hundred miles to fit his new touring saddle to his rump.
Me, I break in new bicycles by throwing them against concrete, and using the sidewalk to scrape off unneeded ass. It wouldn't really be a bicycle of mine, anyway, if I rode it 150 miles without crashing.
Racing the cars east down Carnegie after work (and nearly winning,) on my new(-to-me) early 80's Fuji Del Rey, I hopped up to the sidewalk to avoid construction and cool off under a sprinkler. To salute my brashness and brilliance, snake hose flaunched us into a curb-framed sidewalk flowerbed.
I uncrumpled up In place, In one piece, Wind intact; she, also, essentially fine, just wheezing out the front tire. I replanted the marigolds we uprooted on impact.
I haven't bought a new portable airpump yet (to replace the stolen one,) so I took the rapid back to Tremont. I have serendipity, optimism, and Adam Harvey to thank for finding and driving me the rest of the way home, and, ((re-tubed but not retired,)) getting me back out to ride over to the blogger meetup.
fork torn; forlorn, crumpled frame
My friend,
You must've worked hard yanking, crushing, and battering my bicycle tonight, while she was locked to a tree on E. 128th at Buckeye.
She was a Fuji named Judy, but you probably didn't care to ask her name or check who made her before you stripped her airpump, headlight, and pack (hardly valuable) then left me with unrideable, unfixable junk.
I think I can salvage the handlebar and seat. And maybe the brake levers?
I'm back to driving my car, just when it was getting really nice out. Let's celebrate together?
Next time, cut the lock and take home something you can use.