Pedal Strike

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February 4th, 2010

existential exit

Denial can only last so long, and when your rear brakes start to sound like metal grating on sand, it’s time to install new pads.

Or at least to install new pads within the next two months. On auditory notice that my brake pads were nonexistent, I still managed to forget about buying new ones for about a month. Visual notice that my brake pads actually were no longer there, combined with the increased inability to stop had me nervously watching Andy while he dug through a box of pads. Luck smiling down on me for once in my life, I was able to claim the last ‘cross set in his inventory.

Because stopping’s important, you know?

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I’m not talking about the ability to slow down or stop in the middle of the West Side Highway, River Road, or Central Park, with one foot clipped out to wait patiently, because quite frankly I’m the one that can hardly keep up. My rear wheel isn’t ever going too fast; at best it feels sturdy and reliable, at worst like an anchor with a dead body wrapped around it. Ascents are painfully slow. Descents are faster but still akin to a walrus lumbering lazily towards water. But it’s comfortable despite its inhibiting weight, and kept me fairly grounded.

The first time I rode Mike’s Cyfac to New Jersey, though, the only thing I felt was pressure on my feet and exhaustion tugging at my thighs. It was like riding on air, like flying. The kind where even your brain stops screaming and all you can do is blink.

And even though it was heavier than that Cyfac, potential memories flashed like strobe lights through my brain as I took my sister’s new Bianchi Via Nirone on an unauthorized spin down 2nd Avenue last weekend [HAHA I RODE IT BEFORE YOU, oops, i mean, sorry Kak!]. Built up and exactly my size, it was sitting pretty in NYC Velo and I couldn’t resist jumping on to shift the gears and coast down the street. The brifters bent inwards under my curious fingers, the derailleur clicked, and the cassette spun. I was jealous and a small part of me – okay, more like at least half of me – was tempted to pick up the damn thing and throw it into oncoming traffic. It just didn’t seem fair. I’ve wanted a road bike for so long now that it almost seems like I’ve been biking forever.

But that’s not true [clearly]; I’m just spinning out of control.

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It’s almost too easy to do, too, which makes those jumbled up feelings of envy and bitterness simultaneously more tolerable and more frustrating. There is a lot of teaching of need, of powerful learned wanting that manifests itself into an exchange of things, stuff, whatever, for the motion of sliding plastic and a signature. It’s everywhere, even in an industry fueled by human muscle and grace. And when people told me that this was cool, this was pro, and that this would buy me membership into the exclusively cool, I – an ignorant newbie who is about a billion miles from even trying to emulate Cat 4s – bought into it.

Unknown at the time, and realized only a few days ago, the foolish purchase of that mentality also bought me quite the existential crisis. Deadset on chasing a false sun, I had turned into the modern day – albeit cliched – Icarus, vanity and the desire to fit in shadowing the blatant signs that my wings [or wheels, as the case might be] were melting. Right before I fell, I asked myself why I started all of this – the bikes, the blog, the obsession – in the first place, and unable to come up with a clear answer, I fucking crashed.

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But it stopped me, too. Maybe with a few more psychological bruises and a lot more self-disgust than I had anticipated, granted, but no one ever said this sport was easy. It was never supposed to be; at least not as easy as cutting a check or typing in your credit card number. And I forgot that, even in the company of legit racers who didn’t give a shit what they were riding as long as it worked [and, okay, wasn’t steel], friends who didn’t need to spend money to look like they could lead a breakaway because they could actually do it, and win. Meanwhile, I was trying to hide the weakness of my legs by covering them in money; and in that game, there’s never any winning.

I crashed again yesterday, for [sort of] real this time, first bouncing into the right side of the doorway before smashing into the left side before I did the tumble-slide-fall onto the rollers, my feet still trapped in the clips. My shoulder – skinned and turning an angry red – burned, and I remembered that was where Jared, a Cat 1 track and road racer who will entertain my stupid questions about optimal gearing for the track, punched me last weekend. We were with Andy who once [snobbily] told me that I had to work on my bike snobbery, Chris who does triathlons without training for them, Justin, whose quiet acceptance of everyone as they are is as comforting as his nickname of “Hot Chocolate,” and of course, Mike, the expert of tough love who, unmoved by my emotional meltdown, dared me to give it all up. And I remembered, I really love those guys.

I got up, checked the bike, and climbed back on. And I remembered, I really love this, too.

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February 2nd, 2010

weekend warrior

I suppose, in a way, that it was completely appropriate to be feeling up a roadie’s legs last weekend.

Actually, I felt up two different sets of legs, and the hard substance that the denim was covering up was foreign enough to have me almost groping. In a totally platonic way, though, and we were all doing it.

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It wasn’t completely out of context; the season is already under way for those on proper teams and for the Cat 1 and 2 whose legs I prodded, groped, and pushed, their legs are fueling up while their cyclocrossing counterparts have peaked, raced, and sprayed down their bikes one last time until fall. But all in that in-between phase where sitting on a couch for two hours without feeling guilty about it is permitted, roadies, ‘cross fanatics, and even those like me who don’t fall anywhere on that scale, were collected around a TV on Sunday morning.

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Because the Cyclocross World Championships was showing. And because NYC Velo promised yummy baked goods and freshly pulled shots of rich, dense espresso.

Which is why I was in NYC in the first place…for the fourth weekend in a row. But while fun is never lacking in the city, like those times when you’ve fully given up on finding anything worth dating and something perfect walks in the door and hands you their number, weirdly cool things happen when you’re not really expecting it. Like learning how to slip a number to a guy who’s attached, what hand-pulled beer tastes like, how hard a Cat 1 can punch, and debating the expected ROI on a Diet Coke. Saturday night, Andy was buying first rounds at d.b.a., and totally comfortable about partying on his dime, I had my first Diet Coke in the city with the guys who purposely mis-pronounce my name when I’m in Boston and are under the impression that I’m about the size of a Pomeranian.

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And Sunday, we were back at it; this time I came loaded with vegan peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, Andy with espresso and these giant bombs of non-vegan delicious from Birdbath Bakery. Marco even showed up with donuts, which assured that everyone would be in insular shock by noon.

And on a sugar and espresso high, I even met a few twitter friends, met up again with some Rapha Continental riders, and dropped some cash on a cycloputer [my first!], all before I fought through Chinatown to get on a bus back to Boston. Sitting in an old, slightly dirty, crammed bus, I was wired and tired. Somehow, though, I managed to fall asleep, dreamed of bicycles…and woke up near Boston, where schoolwork awaited [sigh].

…Is it the weekend yet?

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January 29th, 2010

frozen slow

There are usually two choices when you’re stuck out in the frigid cold on a bicycle in too little gear: 1. go as fast as you can while hoping that the resulting body heat you create will somehow overcome the wind that you’ve also created, or 2. reduce your speed under the theory that less wind means less cold.

I’ve tried both, and neither work. The results seem to be about the same: blood refuses to circulate to my feet, fingers, or face. To add to the general discomfort, snot will start pouring out my nose; and to add to my general embarrassment, I can’t feel most of it dribbling down until almost too late. At that point, there’s nowhere to look but up. At least you’re on two wheels and you’ll get home. At least you’re not walking.

But yesterday, I was walking. And it was about 1F.

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All the pretty snow earlier in the day turned to the kind of weather that has your ears stinging and your face hurting as soon as you get outside. That balmy weather that made rides outside slightly tolerable? That was the equivalent of God releasing a teaser for a movie that won’t come out for another 5 months. Thanks for letting us know what we’re missing, big G.

So even though I wouldn’t have ridden outside this weekend anyway – given my wind allergy, I think it’s safe to say that I tend to prefer riding indoors – I still felt indignant about the weather. Temperatures were low enough that I was looking at a weekend of sitting around my apartment, simultaneously feeling lazy and stressed. The kind of weekend where, unless my pantry and fridge were completely bare, and there was nothing left to eat except wood and toilet paper, I wasn’t stepping foot outside.

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But then friends down south in the Big Apple decided to put together a party to watch the Cyclocross World Championships taking place in Tabor, Czech Republic, and it would be early enough on Sunday to allow my attendance and still ship back to Boston at a decent hour. I did what any reasonable person would do: I packed a bag, left my helmet at home, and hopped on a bus.

Which resulted in me half jogging down Chrystie Street in inhumane temperatures when I finally got to NYC. To be honest, when I felt the cold air slap my face, I didn’t really want to get off the bus. I thought about the rollers in my apartment, felt the guilt of abandoning my bikes there for the weekend. But when friends are involved, there’s no shame in slowing down a bit.

And besides, it’s way colder up in Boston.

[If you’re in the NYC area, come out to the World’s party at NYC Velo this Sunday. It’ll be fun, I promise!]

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January 28th, 2010

nerding out

My entire extended family is cursed with the whole “unable to see clearly” thing. Literally. Family dinners will easily result in every single person wearing a pair of glasses. Once that fact sinks in, it’s up to the ones who can sort of see to take one for the team and self-consciously take off their specs. Then we all pretend that we’re not all blind.

It’s a little embarrassing for all involved when caught in those situations. But Tuesday night, I was with a group of pretty cool people and we were all wearing glasses. And it was awesome.

To be honest, I’m still not sure what Jeremy Dunn and Slate were doing in town, but they were in Boston and suggested meeting up at Superb. Not one to say no to anything bike-related, I jumped on the track bike and made my way to my favorite Boston shop. It’s been too long since I’ve actually just hung out; I was like hey, how do I do this again…?

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But of course, not to worry, as the company took any self-imposed obligation to entertain off my shoulders. We hung out in Superb until closing, “covered” for Jason when he had to make some repairs by standing around and chatting, took pictures of each other, and shared tidbits of our respective lives.

I’d like to say that our collective awesome resulted in some mind-blowing stuff. Like we started making fashionable bikes out of our bare hands or something. But like the Clark Kent/Superman dichotomy, the superhero can only come out every so often, and we have events to save that up for. So we Clark Kent-ed by opting for chill beers, Kobe beef hotdogs [for the omnis], and fun times at Aubudon. There was iPhone-age and mucho twittering involved. And with a cell phone that can only 1. make phone calls, 2. take grainy pictures, and 3. text, I had some serious phone envy. And then PVB showed up, raising the IQ level of the table by about 100.

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It was getting late too fast and with a 8.30am class for which I hadn’t quite done the work, we went our separate ways after a few beers [for the guys; fear of riding my track bike drunk had me sticking to Diet Coke…I AM SUCH A VEGAN TEETOTALER, I KNOW]. It was getting cold, and without a hat, my ears were freezing. The sensation seemed almost surreal.

Talking bikes – even though it was only for 2 hours – makes it seem like spring is just around the corner…

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January 26th, 2010

protein paranoia

Go vegan for 21 days. That was the initial promise.

And today marks Day 21.

I’m not quite sure why I did it, other than the fact that as a mostly lactose intolerant vegetarian, giving up eggs and honey didn’t seem too much of a leap. But cynical about how easy it really was combined with being not too fond of any kind of “forever,” I decided on the arbitrary number of 21 days. Three weeks. No animal products. 1 2 3 Go.

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Wait, wait. This isn’t a post about my discovery of fake meat and chicken-like substances that are actually made from wheat. The thing is that even as a vegetarian, I avoided fake meat. Other than the highly processed nature of the stuff, it seemed a little weird to miss meat – which I really didn’t – on a vegetarian diet. Tofurkey, vegan deli “meats,” Tofu pups…they all seemed a little too alien to grace my plate. Besides, eating real food – vegetables, fruits, and whole grains – made me feel better. Why fix something that’s not broken?

Unfortunately, veganism, I’ve found, is a little different. The small “vegetarian” notation on a menu becomes meaningless because you can’t eat butter, milk, or eggs. Suddenly you have to be annoyingly inquisitive about your food. You start scanning ingredient labels for things like casein and whey while your friends roll their eyes behind your back. Veganism is to nutrition, I’ve found, what paranoia is to mental health.

Which is why I tried to avoid the nutritional equivalent of constantly looking over my shoulder. I ate lentils and vegetables and fruit, forgot to take my B12 supplements every day, didn’t monitor my protein intake, and got massively depressed as a result. Go me.

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Okay, okay, I was PMSing, too. But we’re talking about the kind of off-the-charts crazy that had me weeping over not getting enough protein and crying over not being motivated enough at everything. Even on the level of insane in which I usually operate, things were not normal. I creeped out a bunch of my friends. Some advised me to eat some yogurt. I considered it.

But we’re talking about a mere 21 days. So instead, I ate some tofu, invested in a tub of nutritional yeast, and toughed it out. I researched plant protein sources and bought my first ever bag of protein powder, feeling like a ripped jock in the process. I learned about the controversies behind unfermented soy and steamed my first batch of tempeh. Beans are my new best friend, and popcorn sprinkled with nutritional yeast is one of the best snacks I’ve ever had. End result? In 21 days, I’ve learned a lot, but not quite enough.

So I’m going to keep at this. Maybe for 4 more weeks. Maybe for 4 more months. Who knows? I do know, though, that my bag of hemp protein powder probably won’t get consumed otherwise. And with the smoothies I’m mixing them into, that would be a damn shame, vegan or not.

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Protein Paranoia Smoothies
[Inspired by Alton Brown’s Buff Smoothie, this is a versatile recipe in which the mixed berries can be switched out for plain raspberries, strawberries, or blueberries. Alton Brown adds 2 ounces of acai juice, but I prefer to just use more almond milk. Of course, you can use any milk alternative of your choice as well.]

Ingredients
4 oz. unsweetened almond milk
2 oz. banana [about half of one, if using frozen, thaw it first]
2 oz. frozen peaches
2 oz. mixed berries
1 tablespoon hemp protein powder

Directions
1. Combine all the ingredients in the blender the night before. Place in the fridge.
2. In the morning, mix on low for one full minute. Then blend on high for 30 seconds.
3. Double-fist with coffee. Or enjoy solo.

Makes 1 serving.

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