TRAINING CAMP

With less than four weeks to go before the D2R2, it has come to my attention that perhaps a more regimented training schedule will assuage the impending misery I have carelessly agreed to: the 107 mile, 70% dirt road ride known as the D2R2. Equipped with the driving forces of terror and imminent suffering, I have decided to seriously amplify my training in anticipation. For the next four weeks camp cupboard will turn into a veritable cottage of wattage; with one rest day and twenty total hours of exertion a week.

What prompted this unparalleled jolt of heroic motivation was partly the obscene price tag of 60 red-blooded, green-backed U.S. dollars needed as the entry fee. And that price is without the t-shirt. While I thoroughly understand this is a fund-raiser for the Franklin Land trust, sixty dollars seems awful steep a price to pay somebody to inflict lots of pain upon myself; especially when over the years I've inflicted untold amounts of pain upon myself completely for free. When signing up, I had the option of opting for either of the two shorter rides, a 30 mile or 70 mile one, and my budget consciousness reared again compelling me to get the most ride for my money. Why buy 30 miles when I could get 107 for the same price?

Until post-August 24th, my life schedule will become even less conducive to social activities or personal well-being. My bedtime is reaching newer lower limits; whereas before I would wait until after sundown, lately I have found myself keeling over with the soothing sunbeams of diminishing dusk still perceptible through my eyelids. I've begun to wake before six AM without aid of an alarm, and I'm having trouble with showing up to grocery stores well before opening. My friends are distant memories, mere ghosts sending me messages in what seems like the middle of the night but may more likely be ten or eleven PM. The TV is never loud enough, it's always too hot or too cold out, and I can't remember when to take what pills when. It's like I'm living the life of an octogenarian but with chewing ability intact and fewer fiber supplements, so it ain't all bad.

Group ride the lightning

A huge reason I was impelled to cycling was the independence it fosters. I was never a fan of driving nor much a fan other people so I tended to avoid cars and public transportation. Discovering a simple, practical and comprehensible form of transportation was at once liberating and empowering. After so long, solitary commuting evolved into solitary training. Shedding my hardened antisocial exterior-which took an entire upbringing submerged in suburban dystopia to form-was absolutely out of the question; and luckily for me that question never even arose. Riding became my own personal island where I had trained monkeys feeding me cocktails out of coconut shells and where I could sunbathe like a European without fear of making children cry.

Just last weekend my own personal pleasure island had been rocked by a force not unlike a category 5 hurricane: The Group Ride. Riding in groups is like taking a practice test, it simulates riding in a peloton without the emotional repercussions of being dropped, the financial blow of wasting money to be in a race, or even the the athleticism required to be in a real race. While constantly reassured this was a slower ride and hence I would be fine, the terror of being boxed in a cluster of roadies was paramount to any fears of athletic incompetence. Determined not to ride like a triathlete, I knew conquering this group ride thing was imperative to my development as a cyclist. I approached the ride like a child forced into eating spinach; I held my breath, grimaced, and focused on the ice cream I'd be eating soon enough.

The ride started out slowly, winding its way north and out of the city. Once into the suburbs, the group remained at roughly the same speed, which I assumed to be a warm-up of sorts, so I remained in the back waiting for something exciting to happen. While I maintain a healthily inflated self-concept in most areas of life, cycling is as of yet the only endeavor to systematically erode my wall of hubris into humble crumbles, and as such staying out of the way is nearly always the most appealing option. An hour and a few hills later I was convinced the ride would be starting at any second, and my death grip on the handlebars tightened in anticipation. Yet even later, a small group of us who had to work that day broke off to go home; the ride was officially over and I hadn't even known it began. Although the pace was relaxed, the perpetual anxiety I had been riding with and the tension in my arms was immensely fatiguing, but the most painful part may have been the three stings I endured after a wayward wasp wandered down my shirt.

I had mentally prepared to feel vulnerable, like a soft freshly molted salamander seeking camouflage on a carnivore's tongue, which was apparent in the way my jaw ached from grinding my teeth and from the numbness coming from my blood-starved pinkie figures. After arriving home I realized how overblown my fears and concerns were; I also realized that salty sweat pouring into an ever-swelling sting wound is shockingly awful. But like the first beer I drank as a teenager, this first group ride left me with nary a buzz, yet I'm inexplicably drawn to try it again.

Ladies First

Ever since I was old enough to comprehend the nature of sexual dynamics in modern society--around five or six years of age--I decided that boys seemed to ruin most everything.
Apparently others out there agree. In light of this enduring fact, some radical women are putting on a women-only race tomorrow. While I must miss the festivities to "work" at the shop, for this event I gave a few bags to sponsor, including one with a meticulously crafted appliqué of an anatomically precise uterus. For those of you less scientifically savvy, the uterus is the moon-goddess organ seated in the depths of the abdominal pan's labyrinthine cavity, and is the source of our carnal power.

My other ride is a LSR

In the course of human evolution, our prehistoric ancestors crawled on the ground as mammals, lived in trees as more advanced prosimians, then came back down from the forest and began to walk and run as proto-humans. Because of this, walking and running are easy enough to learn; we evolved to be good at this. Bicycles have only been around for 100 years, giving zero time for our species to selectively repopulate the earth with scrawny yet oddly pear-shaped and totally hairless uber cyclists. As such, training is not a natural nor intuitive process.

To follow common cycling lore, one must first collect a large sum of miles, between 500 to 1000, before real training can commence. This acquisition of miles is referred to as base miles, named such because this set of miles is morally devoid, dishonorable, illegitimate, and has a pH over 7. It is not recommended to exert maximal effort during these, and hence the name Long Slow Ride (L.S.R.) is apt. It is during this establishment period that the body becomes attuned to the demands of the bicycle; capillaries branch, the heart becomes stronger, and unique muscle groups get used to working together. Like a funeral home beautician applying foundation to a corpse, the base miles serve to fill in the gaps.

LSR to me has come to mean Long Solo Miles, because at this point in my S.A.D. cycling career, no intermediate cyclist really wants to ride with me. Its not just the slow but erratic pace I likely ride at, but the lack of something referred to as bicycle "handling skills" which can realistically put others in danger. From what I can gather, all it really means is the ability to keep your bike upright, usually going in a straight line, but sometimes turning. The difficulty arises due to inconsistencies in the terrain and is further burdened by increment weather, traffic patterns, relative fitness and exertion levels, time of day, and of course the trajectories of the other riders. It seems simple enough.

Because I'm new to this city and because I'm much too cowardly to venture out forging paths of my own, I choose to do the bulk of my LSRs on a 24 mile paved bicycle path to Valley Forge. A somewhat lackluster rail-to-trail, this concrete strip hosts splendid views of industrial parks, busted-out industrial parks, and even: industrial parks under current construction. Yet it ends at a giant valley that is paved, pre-forged, and even chocked-full of somnolent colonial chronicles, so it has its charms. The park also features practical amenities which I take complete and unbridled advantage of; these include a clean-ish public restroom and close proximity to some off-highway mini-marts.

Two hundred years ago, this was the location that Washington and his troops spent a miserable, epic, and treacherous winter (however with so many stories about soldiers being naked and socially isolated it couldn't have been that bad); where they seemingly lost all hope only to meet a bountiful spring that restored them body and spirit, and changed the course of the Revolutionary War and thus the history of the United States. And it is here that I go on epic, treacherous LSRs then refuel with abundant, glorious amounts of gas station junk food. It's like my rides are microcosms of historical suffering being repeated on the hallowed ground, the ghosts of Freedom and Revolution urging me to keep riding, to forge on, and to promise "just this once" and to not tell anybody when I get back to the city.

Going #2

I never had younger siblings, so as a child I didn't have the opportunity to fully realize my most likely awesome potential as an instructor. Now that I am a wealthy, wildly successful adult I have the Internet, where I get to teach, praise, and even taunt freely and without fear of parental interruption or retribution. While I do have a surfeit of wisdom I could share, much like the greedy, maladjusted middle child I would have been, I have chosen merely one to delve into online.

This one topic is of course, cycling. As you may well be aware, I have been gracious enough to grant front row admission to my epic, coming-of-age journey of becoming a serious, amateur, dedicated (or S.A.D.) cyclist. I have been doubly generous in condensing and dispensing indispensable cycling sapience. Coinciding with my unapologetically ingenuous internet simulacrum and coupled with my passionate exhibitionism, I wish to squeeze off yet another glossy pearl of wisdom to adorn the collective bare heaving chest of my adoring audience.

Like losing your virginity, my first tip probably left many uncomfortable, confused, and with Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" stuck in your head. Why bother investing so much in something which real reprocussions include a 10PM bedtime and ingrown crotch hairs? Yes, cycling is unnecessary, painful, and brutally spirit crushing, but so is nearly every endeavor other than breathing oxygen and procreating. I could go into a lengthy discourse about the falsity of the American dream, of the hopeless persistence of suburban anomie, of self-induced existential dilemmas, but it is already 9 o'clock PM and I have to get up really, really early to ride tomorrow. So here is where the real carrot stick lies, why serious cycling has such an immediate allure.

More tersely, here's my Tip #2:

As a beginner, you will advance faster than any other time. Every month you learn new things, become stronger, smarter, faster, better looking. In the first six months of serious riding it's possible to double endurance, to shave substantial chunks of time off the same ride, and to rapidly increase muscle and lung function. You can progress from gooey fetus to full-blown, bedwetting, phallic-stage penis-envy toddler in the course of a year. When you've only been riding for seven months, even on your crap days you can tell yourself, "I'm not as crap as I was 3 months ago". And unlike pathetic rationalizations of poor performance in other areas of your crap life, you won't be lying this time.

Happy riding!

Help me, help you

Long ago I made the weighty declaration to live my life in such a way that would be beneficial to humankind. Like Gandhi and Mother Theresa before me, I have vowed to sacrifice my own well being and luxury to help others; only instead of liberating countries or feeding the hungry I contribute by using my finely tuned, highly trained scientific mind in an attempt to solve some of life's slightly less pressing but no less irritating problems. There's no doubt that starving or being systematically oppressed can put a damper on letting the good times roll, but smaller problems too can have life-inhibiting consequences and thus should not be neglected.

In my quest to solve the problems of humanity and bring happiness to the world, I have decided not to be bogged down with matters huge, glaring and/or obvious. Instead, I focus on small conundrums specific to my time and place and habits. By focusing on myself I am really concentrating my already impressive talents into a tight, dense ball of genius; idea bullets to be muzzle-loaded into the musket of hope. As cohesive and logical as that may sound, there are unique difficulties in focusing on too small of a realm. Creating solutions for extremely specific or esoteric instances can lead to inventions like the hands-free umbrella, extravagant wastes of talent and time that don't even make you look good.

I have long been perplexed by the options available for cycling-related personal object transport. And by my ''C-" math-student calculations I am convinced that a substantial proportion of cyclists are too. My solutions took the form of numerous cleverly designed bags and pouches, of which I have since refined and streamlined in attempts to mass distribute.

In my first small-scale attempt at fulfilling this dream, I partook in the semi-annual R5 productions Punk Rock Flea market. This past weekend I unloaded a cornucopia of colorful canvas creations, my very own Camp Cupboard U Lock holster hip pouches, onto a charmless wooden veneer table at the Starlight ballroom. I was selling my bags along with thingys, doo-dads, and other curiosities at fair and affordable prices. Fueled by whiskey ginger-ales and cheese-fries, I espoused the numerous life-changing benefits of comfortably carrying U locks while looking really, really good. There were some onlookers rife with disbelief, some interested yet impecunious parties, and many passers-by using the derogatory term "fanny pack", but my spirit was high and my sales tallied up as pretty damn decent.

As scintillating as my stitching my be, I am begrudgingly aware that carrying stuff while riding may not be a true scourge of many of my peers. Many of my sweet, charming patrons did complement the logical design coupled with interesting and pleasing aesthetics, and thus reinforced and reinvigorated my mission. I wish to give a giant, sappy, and totally appreciative thank you to everybody that came out to visit my table, and to everyone that used their money on my table as opposed to someone else's, or even just stopped to chat.

Gotta be starting something

I often take pop song lyrics from the 80's directly to heart, and since I don't wanna be no vegetable, I've been starting many many somethings.

This week I made my triumphant return to the bicycle, I've been working full time at Trophy bike shop, and I've been slaving away in preparation for this Saturday's R5PPRFM.

I've got many glorious things in the works; including but not limited to setting up an Etsy shop, posting newer, more genius-er bicycle related designs, buying my first 'cross bike, and training for the D2R2.

So please continue to enjoy the internet documentation of my adventures, as I'm so busy in "real life" I've become rather impossible to keep track of.

Nature Vs. Nurture

I had a typical middle-American childhood. And by that I mean I was a depressed, friendless, awkward, chubby, socially isolated youth held captive by padded walls of modern suburbia. My concept of "outside" was that of a toxic landscape rife with spiders, snakes, and boogey-men; a place that one dared not enter lest one truly desired to be ravaged by the heat, sun, flora and fauna. Leave the house and the possibilities of victimhood abound; one could be the recipient of a watermelonesque welt from an unidentifiable insect or even be chased by MadDog swigging wilderness men. Or if particularly lucky, one could hike around the local canals and be the first to discover a freshly dumped human corpse--my fear of "outside" was not completely unfounded.

I have often expressed my disdain for heat and bugs and dirt and nature and being outside, and usually my tirades are intercepted with the lame yet well intentioned references to the beach. Oh yes, I am from Florida, and thus I had 2,000 miles of glorious shoreline to savor. The beach however is akin to a bowl of wax fruit on a table in a furniture store. I suppose it looks good in photographs, but there isn't much to really do with it. People go to the beach to sit on towels and get sunburned. Maybe they'll go into uncomfortably cold jellyfish infested water for six or eight minutes then sit around soggy for the rest of the day. Maybe they'll swallow some red-tide and have heinous diarrhea for a week. Usually a trip to the beach involves a lot of driving, getting sweaty and sandy, getting your car sweaty and sandy, and coming home with inescapable exhaustion yet having accomplished nothing. In short, the beach is for assholes.

Cycling was the first activity I came to enjoy that placed me inexorably inside the outside. At first I was just road riding though urban areas or riding a paved rail-to-trail which tended to buffer me from the real icky sticky of nature. But like so many first dates, one thing rapidly lead to another and I was borrowing mountain bikes to ride in the local trails; I was all up in nature like a bouncing balloon of narcotics inside a weary drug trafficker's duodenum.

While I built up a hefty tolerance to the outside due to my love of riding, my unease has eased since I moved north. From the first ride though the Wissahickon I discovered there is a different kind of nature here that is increasingly eroding my long standing grudge. There aren't alligators in the lakes or massive glistening webs filled with bird-sized spiders. I can even stop riding for a moment without worrying about attracting a swarm of rabid mosquitoes. The trails are dark because massive clusters of old growth trees have canopies which actually shield the ferocious sunshine.

It isn't merely the lack of irritating stimuli to which I had become inured that so rapidly changed my view of outside. The background noises aren't frantic insect mating calls but bird songs. The dirt here is rocky and full of mica so even the mud sparkles. The forests run along major rivers so there is always a breeze, and the patches of darkness are soothing. During the daytime rabbits and beavers frolic across the trail, and at dusk there are fireflies. The forest here twinkles with magical blinking creatures and glitter dirt and I have realized there is a reason the Transcendentalist poets were not from the South. Try and wax nostalgic about the swamp all you want, but I can not fathom romanticizing about humidity that makes you feel like a claustrophobic at a mouth-breather's convention held in a gas station bathroom.

Bedrest and beyond

Like the expulsion from Eden, my post-hospital bed rest was replete with cursed suffering. Not long after absconding from my foggy, supine corner of the ICU, the pain returned with vicious ardor. My enthusiasm for freedom was extinguished with the realization that being on an IV drip of Dilaudid for three days lead me to greatly under appreciate or even realize my injuries. For three much longer and unfortunately much more cognizant days I endured mental and physical battles with low energy, low appetite, and a most uncharacteristic sluggish wit.

While I am an acidic pickle I am absolutely not one to dilly dally. The very day I felt completely not-so-bad-ish I set off with the vigor of a fifteen-year-old house cat to resume fulfillment of my life's goals, dreams and aspirations. I'm very happy to say that I finally found some work. I have merrily joined the ranks of the post-collegiate purposefully underemployed, as I will now be (wo)manning the sales front of a very fine shop. This shop deals in all matters pertaining to the bicycle, and hence this career move places me somewhere between cannon fodder and Civil War Reenactor on the battle ground that is the cycling industry.

I now have the life-affirming pleasure of enlightening the layperson on all topics surrounding the glory that be: the bicycle. Aside from the obvious perks of working with awesome, interesting, like-minded people, I am also the lucky recipient of vast amounts of mechanical knowledge to which I am accepting with pious reverence and perhaps poorly concealed avarice.

A week spent on cajoling my liver to re-congeal and landing a steady job did not sate my appetite for exhaustion. I've also been in steady preparation for the great big R5 Productions Flea Market, at which I will likely sell out of my impeccably designed and highly limited batch goods. Because of this I seriously advise all planning on dropping by to come to my table first, to spend all your money on my stuff, and also to donate pizza and beer to my needy stomach. Seriously.

Happy riding.

It's coming

R5 PUNK ROCK FLEA MARKET- SATURDAY JUNE 28TH At STARLIGHT BALLROOM