DONE!!

So on Sunday I completed my first century in 5.5 hours–a very respectable time. I couldn’t have done it with out the close support I got from so many of my friends and family leading up to the ride. Also, a huge thank you to everyone who sponsored me in my fundraising efforts for the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society. The New York City Chapter that went to Montauk raised over $100,000 alone, which is not insignificant at all, so every little bit added up! Now that I am finished and you would like to still make a donation, please visit my donation site, or get in touch with me personally.

I have so much to write about, but now is not the time.

More to come soon.

My baby

Buying a new bike, especially one of these new bikes they make now, is kind of like getting [having, whatever] a kid. While my new bike isn’t born from the miracle of life, it is made of some serious technology. But the fact that makes it most like a little baby is the crap I need to buy for it now and the constant supervision it requires. By all standards, the maintenance of the new bike is minimal compared to say my older bike. I’ve heard claims that you will have to make adjustments very, very infrequently.

I guess I shouldn’t get too worked up over spending money because all I’ve really bought specifically for the bike so far is a tire pump and a water bottle holder, which didn’t set me back too much because I caught one on sale at www.performancebike.com . But I’m realizing that I’m going to need another set of inner tubes, wax for my chain and some emergency air/CO2 canisters. I’m holding out on that until I get some more money in my bank account or Coach Josh comes down on me for not having them. Overall, there is so much stuff that I don’t have on my bike that I could spend, starting with a bike computer. Now I get the point that you want to check your cadence and know how far you have traveled, but I like to separate my biking experience to anything that likens it to sitting in front of a computer. So I don’t think you will ever see me with one of those.

So babies are expensive, and so is my bike, but the real problem with kids are that they are so damn cute and sometimes they get poop on them and you have to clean them. Not to sound ridiculous with this, but yes, I wipe down my bike after I ride, check my tires for glass and am always refilling the air in the tubes. Why? I have no idea. I guess when it comes down to it, I really like it and it treats me good, so in turn I make sure it has what it needs.

Yes, I really like my bike. I didn’t expect to ride out of the store with a carbon bike, but after test riding three $1,000 aluminum bikes (Bianchi and Cannondale) I rode the Cannondale Carbon Synapse and knew I wouldn’t be taking any of the aluminum ones.

The first bike I took out was a hot looking Bianchi Vigorelli. It was the last one they had in stock and it was an inch or two too tall for me. But that didn’t make a difference, I hated everything about it. The steering beyond being really twitchy then felt loose because they have some kind of adjustable stem attached to the handles. I’d have to sub that out. Aside from bring faster (due to being lighter) than my old steel frame. I’d rather be behind everyone else riding than feel like I was going to swing out of control at any point. Also, I felt everything from the road. All of my previous riding experience had so far come on a very heavy steel frame, which for all it’s faults is a very smooth ride. On the Bianchi I had to ride through a section where the road was a dug up, and it was terrible in that, I felt everything even through the carbon fork.

The next bike he sent me out was an aluminum Cannondale CAAD8 with a carbon fork—a little more expensive but fit better and had pretty good equipment on it. Right off the bat I noticed it took off faster than the Bianchi bike. The handling was pretty good, but if the road wasn’t smooth, it was pretty unpleasant. I took it around the block, got up to a pretty good speed. When I got back to shop I figured it would do the job for what I needed, but it didn’t make me smile. I was complaining about how uncomfortable I was with the vibrations, so I asked to take out one of the all-carbon bikes.

I don’t know how carbon works exactly, but it super strong, super light and super absorbent of vibrations. The next bike I took out, and was the one that I left the shop with was the Cannondale Carbon Synapse.

First off, it fit me perfectly. The old Raleigh steel frame I had been riding on was too tall, but I never had any pain from riding it and I liked the way I was balanced on it. The Synapse had that same feel, so that was something personal to me and the way I ride, but what I really appreciated was how much FUN it was. I rode through that same section with the construction and the gravel and was comfortable and had total control. Also, at this time, I was climbing a hill and I was picking up the speed. At the top of the hill I kept going and built some incredible speed really fast. I had thought that the CAAD8 had some wheels, but the Synapse was that much quicker. Coming down the hill where the road was smooth it felt like I was skiing on butter. The Shimano components on it are top notch, the braking is soft precise with the pressure you put on the tires and the shifting is quick and hardly noticed while peddling. As of this point, I have no complaints except I’m afraid to let it out of my sight.

I had a huge grin when I came back in the store, this is what I had been looking for and whether the sales guy had intended to get me to buy something more expensive or not, I purchased it. We put some clip in bindings on it and I was out the door.

I had never rode with clips before so in front of the store I stepped in and promptly fell over.

That weekend I rode about 100 miles on it and have been dying to get back on it if only it were warmer. So it’s my new baby.

Quick Update

So I know it has been a while since I’ve written about my progress and training for the Century Ride (May 20–not too far away now), but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been doing anything. Actually, quite the opposite. Most excitingly, I bought a new bike a couple weekends ago and I really haven’t stopped riding it. It is about a mere fraction of the weight of my old one and it is so much fun to ride. In the last 72 hours I have biked around 110 miles (30 on Saturday, 40 on Sunday, 20 Monday night and another 20 this morning) and if the weather is nice when I get home from work, I’ll probably be out on my bike again.

In the coming week, I hope you will look forward to a few posts that I have been working on, but haven’t quite finished.
1. I’m going to give a full review of my bike (a Cannondale Synapse Carbon) and what I have learned about biking from being on it.
2. I’ve also bought a new phone (a Cingular Blackjack) which I have some opinions of as well.
3. Finally, in what may be a two-part installment, I’ve been writing a piece about JetBlue’s flights to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

Of course there will always be the excitement of what blows up outside my office window. As an update to my last post, the exploded jackhammer was hauled out of the site on Friday and a new one is already there. Listening to this banging all day is going to make me lose it. Believe me, I didn’t shed any tears when the first one blew up (and of course, nobody was hurt in that incident, so all is good).

Bike Shop

Since we have had bad weather for the last few days I figured it would be a good opportunity to bring my bike in to the shop and have it tuned up. I can’t tell whether this is just sales-guy talk or not, but after taking a look at my bike they really wanted to convince me to buy a new one. Granted, I know it is old and heavy, but it’s not the worst. And as I’ve been informed by many a cyclist, it’s not the bike, it’s the rider that really matters. So, if it means that I have to train a little harder than the guy on the custom-fitted carbon frame, so be it–well, I’ll just say that now until I’m stranded on 9W because something has broke.

So I got it back from the shop yesterday. We upgraded my front and back fork ends which were holding my tires on with bolts for some dropouts. A smart move, since I have had the problem of my wheels becoming loose after long days of riding. This will keep me much safer. The chain was cleaned and the brakes were tuned up. All the squeaks and grinding in the drive train is gone, so I’ll be a much happier rider.

I rode my bike to work for the first time in the city and it was quite enjoyable traveling downtown through Central Park, but navigating to the office in Midtown East, was a little bit of struggle. I’ve made a note to avoid 7th Ave at that time in the future because the road surface is terrible and there isn’t a good lane to ride in. Other than that, the tune up makes it a whole new bike and I was climbing hills with a lot of speed, something that my dirty chain was holding me back from doing. Tonight we have a training ride, so I’ll get to see how I hold up.

Riding before Sunrise

Last night I went to a clinic for Team in Training that dealt with keeping your bike in good repair. My bike is in poor shape and I am reminded of it every time I try to climb a hill. Other than that, my pace is good and I’ve been in the front packs for our training rides. I’m looking forward to investing a little money into a full tune up, slapping some new wheels on her, upgrading to clip-in pedals and see how she flies. Someone gave me his old cycling shoes (well new and unused shoes that didn’t work for him). We are the same shoe size and it was extremely generous as the shoes are gorgeous.

I was up at 5am this morning and was in the park by six to do this Tuesday’s training ride. I guess mostly due to day light savings it was still dark, but on the second lap I got to see the sunrise over Central Park and the New York City sky line. It was the first time that I’ve ever got to be outside to see it in the city and it was beautiful. It happened so quickly like someone switched on a light and for the next hour, the roads were still empty but everything was bright.

We start each ride by letting someone share something inspirational. Today one of the people in the group asked us to all think about while we were riding how lucky we are to be able to do what we are doing. Thinking about that helped me appreciate being up out of bed so early in the morning. It also helped me connect the energy I was taking to ride on my bike to the fight that so many people are fighting with Lymphoma and Leukemia. I’m looking forward to the next morning ride. Heck, I might do it on my own everyday if I can.

So I got back to my apartment a little earlier than when I normally wake up, took a shower, made some breakfast, bitched about Bush-Cheney policy and then went to work. Thanks for reading!

Saturday’s Ride

So this weekend I made it to the Saturday training session, despite the cold. The weather being reported on the internet said that it was 32 degrees outside, which when I actually got outside, found that it felt a little warmer. Many clothes were suggested to be worn, none of which I had. What was recommended was biking shorts, which for the next ride, I will definitely try to have a pair because I’m sure nobody wants to read a blog that complains about chaffing. Also, gloves, I lost mine last weekend riding around. You get the picture. Of the absolutely required equipment, about all I had was a helmet. The rest of what I put together were some brown pants (I was the only one in pants at the practice mind you), and a blue thermal layer with a T-Shirt. Since I don’t own a windbreaker, I wore this blue work jacket. I’ll have to recreate the outfit and take a picture for the blog sometime. Regardless if people were snickering under their breath at me, I couldn’t care less; I was there and I wanted to ride.

Also, I love my bike, but it’s a really heavy piece of junk sometimes. When I got home, I finally noticed that the back wheel had somehow got loose and was now rubbing against the brake. For right now, I figure the whole process should be figuring out what I absolutely need so that I don’t waste money on stuff like foot covers (which I might actually buy because my feet were frozen after riding). Nevertheless, my bike was the coolest one there and a lot of people wanted to check out the old Raleigh steel frame that I was sporting.

We did four laps around the park. The first was a warm up lap. Then we did a timed run. I had no idea where I should place myself in the pack, but I ended up doing quite well–or so I think. My time was 23:35. So, the loop in Central Park is 6.1 miles long, meaning that I averaged about 15 miles per hour. I guess someone can check my math, but that was: distance / time * 60. My goal, obviously, is to do much better than that. We finished with two laps and I went home and took a nap.

Monday I’m looking forward to the clinic on bike repair, so I’ll be oiling my chain and dealing with the loosing wheel issue.

Team in Training

I’d like to introduce you to a new page on my blog: Team In Training. You will notice the link just below the byline on my banner. During this next spring I will be training heavily to participate in a one-hundred mile bike ride to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I hope you you will look forward to updates on my progress and consider sponsoring me for what I feel is a very important charity.