Pedal Strike

I’ve got a case of the Embrocation Cycling Journal Mondays, again.

Go read my post here.

Tags:   embrocation cycling journal2 Comments

I don’t like to say that I hate to travel. The statement seems to immediately make you a smaller, closed-minded person who is only capable of being comfortable in familiar surroundings. It seems to kill off any ideas that you might have a sense of curiosity or adventure, or that you are in any way cultured. And that kind of sucks.

So I say, yeah, I love to travel. Gimme Europe, I’ve never been, and southeast Asia too. Dying to go to India, even if the water might kill me, and Machu Picchu is definitely on the list.

If only all that traveling wasn’t involved…!

I’ll be honest. I’ve traveled enough times that the process just isn’t that exciting to me anymore. Unlike those who get excited at simply being inside an airport, the fluorescent lights and dry air characteristic of airplane terminals give me an instant exhaustion headache. I get cranky, thirsty, and bloated. Despite the countless times I’ve flown from Tokyo to New York or Philadelphia or Boston, I still haven’t shaken that feeling of wanting to just lie horizontally for at least 8 hours after a 12 hour flight. But of course there’s customs, immigration, baggage claim. And that headache.

So even if I tell myself that I have more friends in the city than in Boston, that it’s warmer down there, and that there are more vegan-friendly cafes in the Lower East Side alone than in all of Boston including Metro West, it’s strange that I’m making the trek out to NYC yet again. I got that headache [it’s not exclusive to airports], and I was also cranky, thirsty, and bloated, but this time it wasn’t family, home cooked meals, or the desire to simply get away that had me making the trip. It was a bicycle.

It’s not new – pictures of it abound on this blog – and it’s not even mine. But the aluminum Cyfac that I can somehow manage to stand over presents the perfect solution to my current lack of gears, exasperation at the cold weather in Boston, and desire to spend time with good friends. It has me spending more time sleeping in a weirdly vertical position than I really should be, typing out posts furiously to match the speed at which the bus tumbles down the Connecticut highway, all so I can clip in today and try my hand[s] at the whole gears thing yet again. True, the whole ordeal was slightly terrifying when I first tried it, but just like a girl’s persistent pursuit of a man can break his stubborn desire to stay an eternal bachelor, perseverance can pay off. And when we’re talking bicycles, not boys, it doesn’t really matter that you’ll probably embarrass yourself repeatedly in the process.

So I’m off – ready to suffer, fall, and/or bonk! If you’re in the NYC area and see a girl on a blue and silver Cyfac with a NYC Velo cap, give a holler [or even a wave!]. If I happen to be plastered on the street, feel free to pick me up and dust me off. Oh, but make sure to save the bike, first. That thing has C-Record on it.

[And the first Rapha Scarf Friday of the year…!]

Tags:   bus · c-record · cyfac · nyc · nyc velo · travelComments Off on travelocity

“It’s cold out today. Or, that’s what I thought when I got in my car.”

I’m met with a variation of that comment at least once a week when people see me with a bike in one hand and a helmet in the other. A friend once informed me, in the middle of that frigid cold snap we had back in December, that no one should be riding in this weather. It’s probably true and sometimes – other than the fact that the bike just gets me there faster – I’m not sure why I still do it. I know I’m capable of riding through a Boston winter. I have nothing to prove by repeating the miserable experience.

Because while winter bike commuters deserve a gold foil star sticker, that doesn’t make them – myself included – any better than any other cyclist. Tolerating the short commute from my apartment to school and back in something like 0F temperatures isn’t fun, but it takes a little lot more to do that, then go home to get back on a bicycle for a few solid hours.

Yeah, I know, it’s old news. But listening to the things my friends are doing, and then actually trying to emulate even just a tiny slice of their training, is kind of like finally admitting to yourself that you’re dating an asshole. First, you attribute that whole gap between yourself and your Cat 1 and 2 friends to mutant elite genes that you just don’t have. Like this is as good as it’s going to get, right? [Wrong.] Then those friends start to encourage separation from that lifestyle and you start to believe that it’s actually possible and you’re not going to die [of heartbreak or otherwise] in the process. Finally you’re like WTF, I can do way better than this and I’m going to prove it and you dump the motherfucker [or in this case, the couch and TV].

But when people have real jobs that don’t include “student” somewhere in the title, training apparently involves things like getting up at 5.30am to spin for an hour, then going to work and afterwards hitting the gym, running and riding on the weekends and spending every waking moment not in bed or on the toilet in the saddle. And finding myself in that slight limbo where I don’t really know what I’m doing, I’m tempted to regress to the familiar confines of my couch and wasting countless hours on the Internet. Even if, like any overdue break-up, I know that once I man up about this, I’m never going to want to go back to what I had going before.

So I’ve been trying. To not make excuses, that is. I’m trying to spend more and more time on the rollers [love those things] while retaining all my other time commitments. Which presents a very obvious and elementary math problem of not having enough hours in the day [another reason why I am currently in awe of all of those in training; they have somehow managed to control time by leading fairly regular lives while getting in 3-4 hour rides at least every other day]. And on top of all that, they also have the ability to push themselves really, really hard. When they’re alone. In their houses. On their trainers. If that doesn’t turn you on, you need to go find another blog to read […maybe this break up won’t be so hard, afterall?].

With my complete lack of discipline and the desire to stop when things get ridiculously sweaty, at least half of me is fairly sure that I’ll meet spring still out of shape and whining in the pedals. But like my regular announcements to best friends after a break up that I will never, ever date another man again, I’m hoping that thinking positive in the face of the seemingly impossible might be enough to prove me wrong. If not, I’ll at least get skinny trying.

Or so I hope.

Tags:   break up · hours · rollers · time · training3 Comments

It takes some practice, and you’ll never get it right the first time.

But no one does; you just don’t know it until afterwards. Which saves you some embarrassment…but not while you’re doing it, of course. And while it can become like second nature after you’ve done it a couple of times [or as close to second nature as you’re going to get given the fact that you really shouldn’t be engaging in such activity on a daily basis], it’s still confusing and a little complicated at first. It’s like you don’t know what you’re doing with your hands or your mouth and everything’s kind of messy but you still want it to be good because everyone’s been talking about it. And since no one’s there to really tell you what to do [at least in my case], you’re half wondering like is this okay? Am I allowed to be doing this? What is this stuff all over my face?

That was me and my first burrito. And minus the mouth/face part [okay there was some panting involved], that was me and my first real ride on a geared bike.

With midget legs, I secretly despised friends who would go on vacation and come back with stories of rides on borrowed bikes, concluding with statements like, “man, it’s nice to have friends in different cities.” I would go home to look at my bicycles and the reflection of my legs in the mirror, standing on tip toes and imagining being able to ride something standard like a 50cm frame. Then I would force myself to imagine what landing on a top tube would feel like to erase the envious feelings. Goddamn tall[er] people.

But sometimes luck can throw me a bone, and this time it came in the form of a friend who will gladly ride slow and happens to own an extra geared bike with relaxed geometry that’s just a touch too small for him. I jokingly swung a leg over it once and found that I wasn’t simultaneously sitting on the top tube and standing on my tip toes. At that point a plan was established to which no amount of “I don’t want to experience the buttery deliciousness of Campy Record until I can start dreaming about affording it because that’s like looking for a husband when all you really want is Brad Pitt” could derail. I was stuck. With gears.

So last Friday found me on a Cyfac, chasing a De Rosa from the Lower East Side to New Jersey. Clipped in and lycra-ed out, I mostly had no idea what I was doing and kept glancing between my legs while trying to avoid hitting pedestrians, cabs, and other obstacles. Stopping wasn’t as much of an issue as I had feared [no top tube + body part collisions], but too used to a heavy steel ‘cross frame, I kept pulling up the front wheel when pushing off. The whole thing was light, and loose, and wobbly; the figure skater to my track bike speed skater. It could do multiple things like climb hills and go 24 mph without killing my knees. I was completely weirded out.

To be honest, it was slightly frustrating in how foreign it felt. It’s like getting on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland and being like whatever that was so tame, let’s get on Splash Mountain, only to end the ride gripping the safety bar and trying not to shit yourself. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but you get the point.

Retreating to the familiar, I ended up keeping it in one gear for most of the ride. But like eating a burrito with a knife and fork, I understand that it doesn’t prepare you for the real experience of shifting gears. Only practice can do that. So despite the discomfort and potential for embarrassment, I’m going to dig in and hope for the best.

Hey, it worked for the burritos…

Tags:   burritos · gears · messy · new jersey · shifting6 Comments

Back in my fag hag days, a fabulously gay friend once informed me:

“I only like to be friends with attractive people.”

I laughed in response, at least half in disbelief. The statement sounds ludicrous but I was also struck by its stark naked honesty. We all want to be friends with attractive, fashionable, interesting people, we just never say it out loud. Instead, we say things like “never judge a book by its cover blahblahblah” and make conscious efforts to be friendly to boring, unfashionable people. They deserve a chance, too, right? Besides, there aren’t enough attractive, fashionable, interesting people to go around, anyway [even if I’m using “attractive” here to include more than just physical beauty].

The problem when you do manage to be friends with someone who is attractive, fashionable, and interesting is that the stakes of the friendship are naturally raised. They’re interesting people, people! That means they give perfect gifts, say witty things, and have the kind of charisma that looks good in a burlap sack. By nature of being friends with these kinds of people, they [mistakenly?] believe that you’re effortlessly capable of the same.

Which is not true, in my case. That’s right; I’ve somehow managed to finagle my way into a best-friendship with a girl who is attractive, incredibly fashionable, and interesting. She gives the perfect gifts while saying witty things about current fashion trends. Meanwhile, I give my Mom a call one, sometimes two, times a year: “Mom, Lauren’s birthday is coming up. Can you get her something interesting from Tokyo?”

But despite my terrible gift-giving skills [or lack thereof], sometimes I see something that has both the lightbulb and the alarm going off over my head. It’s usually accompanied by this sweet, bubbly feeling that I’m going to bring back something perfect, myself.

This time it wasn’t for Lauren [sorry, Lauren], but a random stop by the bookstore resulted in a few awesome finds this past winter break. And when I saw the “Bicycle Custom” magazine, my brain screamed as I clenched the pages. The light bulb went on, the alarm was ringing full blast. Hello, Jason a.k.a. Superb Bicycle Mastermind a.k.a. D.J. Mayhem a.k.a. Most Hip Cyclist in Boston, I have the perfect gift for you from Tokyo.

The magazine is full of bike reviews, bike-related clothing, and street shots of people in Japan with their various bikes. Pictures of men and women with anything from a tricked-out fixed gear to a downhill mountain bike grace the pages. Plus, there was a full page on nari/furi, a Japanese clothing and bag company of which Superb is the only distributor in the area. Excited and giddy, I purchased it, already on that “perfect gift obtained” high. Yesterday afternoon I finally delivered it.

We ended up poring over it [the pages going left to right] before it got added to Superb’s fairly impressive collection of bike-related books on their coffee table. If you know your bikes, it’s a weird treasure trove [think vintage Kleins and some crazy mountain bikes]. And because Jason’s an awesome guy he even tweeted that anyone who stops by can take a peek.

Oh, and while you’re there, make sure to check out the array of Outlier pants, nari/furi bags, and the Swrve jackets that apparently every cyclist in the city is snatching up. Jason gave the Swrve Winter Softshell Trousers two thumbs up and for what it’s worth, they look really good, too [if only they made a women’s version!].

I ended up biking back home just as it started to snow, in my ratty, torn up jeans and coat that was decidedly not made for cycling. More homework awaited, but instead I ended up scouring Swrve’s site for a lot longer than was really necessary. I’m starting to really want that jacket. Thanks, Jason…like most all of my attractive, fashionable, interesting friends, you can be quite persuasive.

Tags:   bicycle custom · gifts · japan · nari/furi · outlier · superb bicycle · swrve clothing · tokyo3 Comments