hydrate. stretch. and breathe.

As Les mentioned in her post, this last week has been all about last-minute PMC purchases- tire patch kits, extra bike shorts, mini witches' hats, etc. All the running around has led to a constant state of nervous excitement. And apparently it's not just Les and I that are feeling it. In this final week, Billy Starr has emailed me more than David Plouffe during campaign season. The emails have felt like random brain dumps covering everything from parking, to rider etiquette, to weather forecasts. The emails have been trickling in every few hours with no apparent forethought as to the next "pressing" issue.

Finally, this morning, Billy sent out what he at least claims will be the last pre-ride email. It read:

"Thank you for taking part in the 30th year PMC. Everybody wins on this weekend based on the nature of the work and the cause. But in the heat of the moment, with 5,000 riders on the roads, the big picture can, sometimes, get lost. Please remember:

1. ROADS ARE OPEN to vehicular traffic even though we enjoy comprehensive law enforcement support through the 46 towns we travel.
2. MOVE OVER - that means single file or into the breakdown lane - for a passing car or a faster cyclist who, firmly but endearingly states "ON YOUR LEFT"
3. NO LITTER anywhere: your cycling jersey has pockets. Use them.
4. NO IPODS OR HEADPHONES ARE ALLOWED while riding
5. SUNDAY MORNING BEFORE 6AM - keep the conversation down. Remarkably, some people are still sleeping in the communities through which we travel.
6. START HYDRATING NOW - cut down on alcohol. Stretch. Breathe.

Enjoy your PMC. You have earned it."

The message was pretty simple, but I thought it was the perfect conclusion to his barrage of updates. It *is* easy to lose sight of the big picture in the rush of an event like this, which is why just the other day Les and I were reminding each other that we'd have to check in with ourselves throughout the weekend to make sure we are fully appreciating the experience. I would never claim that the 192 miles will be easy, but I know they're going to pass much faster than one might think, especially when compared to the months of training and thought that have led up to this single weekend.

But first thing's first. For the next 24 hours we just need to hydrate. stretch. and breathe. A seemingly simple equation but one that really does require effort as anticipation continues to mount.

hydrate. stretch. and breathe.
hydrate. stretch. and breathe.

*Then* we ride.

And what a ride it will be.

Whhhat the F*&%# !!???????

In preparation for the big weekend there's been some necessary gear purchased, tune ups, lots of laundry, and meditation sessions [aka-OMG, WTF am i about to do?]

Over the past weekend I noticed how thin my cleats were wearing on my cycling shoes. My Saturday ride was cut short [55 miles] because of a busted cleat, so when I took my bike in for a tune up I purchased new cleats. Now if you are not aware of how or why cyclist 'clip in' to the pedals then here's the gist;
how:
you place a small piece of metal on the bottom of a special shoe
you 'clip in' to a small pedal on your bike.
you 'twist out' when you need to get off your bike.
why:
you get more push for your shove - ya know what I'm sayin'?

Now last spring when i purchased my hybrid, I bought the spd pedals and shoes and learned right away how to clip in. It was more difficult for me to put the special pedals on[and figure out how to take the regular ones off] than to learn how to clip, and un-clip.
I've heard horror stores of people falling and injuring themselves because they cant turn out of the pedal. I NEVER had this issue. I clipped and un-clipped like lance Armstrong's first born child. It was nothin'

So, to my amazement, today when I took a ride here's what happened:

1st stop light, no cars, no need to unclip

2nd Stop light--Comm Ave--lots of city traffic, NBD, I do this all the time...un-clip, un clip, un-clip.....UN CLIP!!!!
I become stagnant, lost my balance and feel to the ground. Hurting my precious. My orange giant I saved all my tips for months for :(

WTF just happened? I've done this for like a year and never had a problem! ok, maybe they need some loosening...just be on your A game and twist a little faster.

3rd Stop light [fenway park, redsox game and lots of red sox fans]
un-clip, un-clip, twist you asshole, fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!! down again?

WTF- [yep, I'm cursing up a storm...embarrassed,pissed because I fell?!? and pissed because there are drunken sox fans everywhere along with taxi jerks honkin there gosh darn horns]
As I'm picking up my beautiful giant again, some woman rides by me...she has one of those old lady bikes with the flower basket and bells that sound like the ice cream truck when you ring it. She's actually quite large, and i look at her and think "wtf are you looking at".... yea, i was angry. She says 'oh honey, you okay"? I say, while giggling [cause what else could i do but smile and laugh at my stupid ass] yes, thank you, I'm apparently having some issues.

Beacon St and St. Paul ---aka fall #3
Now, I'm just thinking, twist god dammit, just twist...why cant i twist like before?
♪♫just twist, like we did last summer, just twist, like we did before♪♫ .......stop light, another crazy lady on her bike [it had a basket too, but this woman was much more mean witch from wizard of oz---dun dun dun dun da da da......] She positions herself so i cant move around her of the vehicle blocking our bike lane. i managed to twist my left out, but i could not keep by balance and fell to my right- thank god.

I took another lap around working on the twisting, and eventually loosening up the pedals. Hopefully this is remedied. I don't need to be fallin all over billy Starr this weekend!



I look like I was just mad handled by Wolverine.

The Final Countdown

Believe it or not, we are only THREE days away from the PMC and I dunno about you, but I am FREAKIN EXCITED. Les and I have both met our fundraising goals (THANK YOU EVERYONE!) and we wrapped up our final practice rides this weekend. Now all that's left to do is bike 192 miles in 2 days... but what does that really mean?

Up until now, I'd been so focused on training and getting donations that I hadn't stopped to think about the logistics of PMC weekend. But with my fundraising complete, and my mind free to wander, I amassed quite the list of lingering questions by the end of Saturday's ride - Am I supposed to pack a toothbrush for the weekend? What about pajamas? Where am I going to lock up my bike at night? Is there going to be somewhere to recharge my iphone so I can live blog about this madness??

When I brought my concerns to Les, she suggested that I umm... read the Event Handbook that had arrived in the mail several weeks ago. Good thinkin, partner.

So for anyone who's ever wondered about these kind of details, here's some of the interesting stuff I learned:

The Basic Schedule-
- The whole weekend kicks off Friday July 31st with the PMC Opening Ceremonies- essentially a big ol' pep rally that'll be broadcast live on NECN from 7-8pm! If you wanna play some real life "Where's Waldo" and try to spot us in the mass of 5,204 cyclists, be sure to set your DVRs or ask your bar of choice to tune in. Heck, you can even make a drinking game out of it- Half beer penalty for every false Les and Danielle sighting- evening-long rule making power for anyone that actually locates us.

- Our ride begins from Sturbridge on Saturday morning at 5:30a.m. We bike straight up until lunch at the Dighton-Rehoboth waterstop and then finish off the day at the Mass Maritime Academy in Bourne, where we'll be met with live music, an all-you-can-eat-buffet and a "well-earned 15-minute massage." Umm I just stopped typing for 5 minutes while thinking about how clutch that massage will be... Alright, must push forward.

- Sunday morning kicks off at the ass crack of dawn - 4:40a.m. - and with the exception of some rest stops, we ride straight to the finish line at the Provincetown Inn.


- Then we get our tired, cancer kicking asses on a ferry back to Beantown. (check out this detailed breakdown of the route: http://www.pmc.org/ems_client/html/pdf/pmcmap2009final.pdf our ride is in the left-hand column, starting in Sturbridge)


The Less Obvious Stuff:
- Thanks to an army of 3,000 volunteers, a lot of the weekend's logistics are taken care of for us, including all of our meals, snacks and adult beverages! Ever wonder what it takes to feed 5,200 bikers? Well this year it'll take 14,000 bags of trail mix, 9,800 hamburgers, 7,000 clif bars, 6,800 slices of pizza, 5,500 hot dogs, 3,000 bagels, 3,000 pounds of chicken, 1,600 loaves of bread, 1,400 pounds of pasta, 850 pounds of peanut butter, 500 pounds of sliced turkey, 500 pounds of sliced ham, 275 watermelons, and 140 kegs of beer. Mmmmmm.

- As far as my toothbrush and pj questions- the volunteers will transport all of our personal gear for us, which is a good thing cause the checklist of items to pack includes casual clothes, rain gear, fleeces, sheets, a flashlight, towels, toiletries, a flashlight and a fan. Not exactly a light load to be towing for 192 miles. Thank goodness for the army of volunteers.

And that's everything that we can predict about the ride. Of course, the most memorable parts of the weekend will take place in between the carefully planned rest stops and press ops, and we'll be live blogging about it the whole way. Well, pretty much the whole way- I don't intend to blog during that 15 minute massage but I'll tell you upfront, it's gonna be great.

thePMC Mixer - you drink, we bike, cancer dies

Date: Saturday July 18th
Time: 7pm-19pm
Location: Slainte' [ 28 West Broadway]

Come for food, drink, raffle prizes, and a fun time!

see invitation

What have we been up to?

Danielle and I getting our bikes back in May:


Odometer--a few weeks back

my new TROJB cycling gloves. I got so excited I wanted to wear them at work...

They work better on my handle bars than my mouse...

The Red Sox Love the PMC

Bike with us!

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again- your support, both verbal and financial, has been integral to our PMC training. That's why we’re so excited about the recently revamped PMC site, which was specifically designed to capture the interactive relationship between donors and riders.

Starting this week, when you donate to our PanMass efforts, you’ll be given the option to add yourself to our "PanMass Paceline"- a virtual and virtually endless online bicycle that allows you guys to saddle up right behind us, essentially becoming part of our virtual team. You can customize your avatar's jersey, hair style, skin color and more! You can even add a little thought bubble with words of encouragement or a message about how cancer has touched your life.


There are no minimum fundraising commitments to become a PaceLine Rider and no credit card numbers will be kept on file. Most importantly, 100% of all donations will go directly to fund groundbreaking cancer research and treatment at the world-famous Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

How freakin cool is that? And even if you've already donated (thank you again!!) you can get yourself onto the avatar congo line with a new donation of as little as $1!

Go ahead- get clicking so so you can get pedaling!

JOIN LES'S PACELINE
JOIN DANIELLE'S PACELINE

Hydrate or Die! (Aka- How I came to love my Camelbak)

Due to some setbacks, I wasn't able to take part in any group rides this weekend and was instead resigned to two more low key rides around the Charles. As much as I love my new bike, I had some doubts about its ability to navigate the somewhat unpredictable terrain around the river, so I decided to show some love to my old, hybrid bike. Only thing is, I recently transferred my water bottle holder from my old Trek to my new Giant, leaving me with a bit of a water flow problem- no minor issue since we all know that you either hydrate or you die!

Luckily, I remembered the Camelbak hydration system that Betsy and Sarah so kindly gave me for my birthday. Thus far in my training I have resisted wearing the Camelbak and have even engaged in my fair share of trash talk- convinced that it would detract from my otherwise badass biker look. But this weekend I really didn't see any alternative, so I dug the pack out of my closet and lemme tell ya, my attitude instantly changed.

First of all, I had forgotten that the pack was neon green- automatic bonus points:


Some of you may not be aware of this, but neon green is the Color of the Millennium. This term was coined by myself and my good friend Stephanie Farkas after years of close observation and field research confirmed that neon green was not only the consistent clothing color choice of Jersey shore beachcombers, but also showed no sign whatsoever of decreasing in popularity. Essentially, this Cambelbak gives me instant Jersey street cred (which I can only assume translates to the trails of Massachusetts).

On top of just looking good, the pack was also incredibly functional. Its convenient over-the-shoulder drinking nozzle kept me wonderfully hydrated, even allowing me to drink WHILE biking, something I've never been able to do before since I have yet to master retrieving my water bottle while my legs are in motion. What can I say, it really is the small pleasures.

All in all, I will never ride without my Camelbak again and I take back all of my unfounded trash talk. I was young and naive and I will never preemptively judge biking accessories again.

In other news, my bike short-, ipod band-, bike glove-, and Camelbak-tan lines are developing nicely. I will be quite the sight to see at the beach this summer- that is, if it ever stops raining.

LOST! (And not the fun version involving Smoke Monsters)

For those of you who haven't already heard, Les and I bought those sexy little road bikes. Actually they're not little, they're Giants and they were worth every penny.


We took them out for a short test ride the other weekend, but their first *real* ride was this Saturday. Since we don't have fancy GPS systems, and there are only so many directions we can keep in our heads or scribble on our arms, we decided to join a Quad Cycles Bike Shop ride, which is "a rolling loop through Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Concord, Carlisle, Chelmsford and Billerica" - basically, a nice little tour of the beautiful Third Middlesex District.


The nicest part of these rides is that while everyone starts off together at the shop in Alrington, you break off into personalized groups based on what kind of pace you want to maintain and how far you ultimately want to ride - anywhere between 1 and 60 miles.

Unfortunately, when we got to the shop, Les ran into some technical difficulties trying to get her pedals switched out, so I ended up leaving with the first wave of riders and Les caught up to the group a little later. I hadn't been planning on biking without a riding buddy, but I wasn't too worried- there were about 40 other bikers there who stayed in a pretty cohesive caravan, and the Quad Cycle employees kept looping around to check on stragglers.

The first 30 miles of the ride leading to the lunch spot - Fern's in Carlisle - were great. We biked through some beautiful portions of the Minuetman Trail, and I started to learn some of the vernacular and hand signals that are second nature to seasoned riders. There's this one move that I've labeled "The Monkey," which looks like you're tossing a ball behind your back (Try it. Congratulations - you just looked like a monkey). This motion warns riders that there's some obstacle to the side that's causing the group to veer into the center of the road. When someone in front of you does a certain hand motion, you mirror it, and the message gets sent down the line - like a big game of sign language telephone. That way you're adjusting your ride for obstacles you haven't even seen yet. It's very cool.

Anyway, we hit the lunch spot and everyone refuled with cold water and power bars. Then it was decision time. Some of the riders were heading back, but another group - most of whom had been in a pack with me during the first half of the ride - wanted to continue on another 5 miles to Hanscom Airforce Base. That way they could cover about 50 miles by the time they returned to the shop. I decided to go with that group, but after about 2 miles it became clear that these cyclers had done CRACK during our lunch break. I mean here we are 35 miles in, on the hilliest part of the ride, and they were maintaining a consistent 19mph speed. Un-freaking-real. I was giving it my all but the gap between myself and the group just kept getting wider and wider. It got to the point where the others were just specks in the distance and I was barely able to keep track of the turns they were making.

Then I rounded one final corner and collided with a Route 2A junction- a wideopen highway intersection and there wasn't a single rider in sight. I was officially left behind and lost in what I believed was Bedford. Now sure, it's not exactly the same as getting separated in Dorchester or Brighton, but still! It felt like anything could happen. I was imagining having to pull over and call Senator Fargo for help. I invisioned search parties and missing girl posters.


But then I channeled Mike, and I knew his advice would be what it always is: "Just keep pedaling." If I absolutely had to pull over and check my iphone GPS, I could, but if I kept going, I still had a chance to catch up (especially since I didn't believe those crack cyclers could maintain that pace much longer). I couldn't afford to lose any time. I had to just keep pedaling.

After about 15 minutes of riding down 2A without seeing a single cycler, the rest of the group literally ran into me as they pealed out of a side road. It was pure luck, but I'll take it.

Needless to say, for those final 5 miles - I made damn sure not to lose them again.

Door to door we rode 60 miles. Not a bad start at all. And hopefully after a few more of these rides, I won't have to worry about getting lost again- not only cause I'll know the routes, but because people will be fighting to keep up with me. Just you wait.

PMC Love

Attention Zipcar users,

Our awesome friend Paul R sent us this pic of a zipcar he saw zooming down the road with PMC labes smacked all over it. Looking into this I found out that Zipcar is also riding in the PMC [their 3rd year!] they've set out to raise 150,000 for the Jimmy Fund, and one way they are raising these funds are discounting all their strategically placed [there only seem to be a few-search here http://www.zipcar.com/boston/find-cars] PMC wrapped Scions xBs to 8$/hr and donating every 2$ for every hour to PMC. Awesome.

So, now I ponder how Danielle and I can work this approach into our fund raising. I initially thought we could give rides on our bikes, but would that require investing in pegs or some sort of carriage system?? No, I think we could pull off a combo piggy back/bike ride. So next time your intoxicated, bored, or just plain lazy, give us a ring. We'll fly on over and carry you where ever you need----for a donation of course.

That was one rough spin class

I pushed myself pretty hard, and Danielle and I were both hurting last night and this morning.

So I decided that today my tired body and mind deserved this:

half a delicious brownie and a chai from my favorite bakery, Flour....yummmm. to be honest, ill probably finish the other half by the end of this post.

"These are only your limits because you haven’t pushed them farther yet"

Les and I have been in serious training mode these past 2 weeks, attending every spin class possible, and we’re starting to see the payoff. Not only between classes, but within classes themselves, I can feel my form improving, my legs getting stronger, and my breathing staying more consistent. This is serious progress.

Of course, the sessions are still a bitch to get through, cause like Mike says: The class never gets easier, you just get faster. But this initial improvement is noticeable and it confirms another of Mike’s go-to lines: These are only your limits because you haven’t pushed them farther yet. A great motto I’ve tried to use on my current LSAT students, though, admittedly, with mixed success.

But even if my students aren’t drinking the Kool Aid, I sure as hell am, so I’ve started applying this motto to as many aspects of my life as possible. And this weekend I discovered a different kind of limit that the Pan-Mass is helping me to push- my credit card limit.

Saturday afternoon, Les and I took a little joyride over to Farina’s bike shop in Watertown – an official sponsor of the PMC – so that I could buy some bike shoes and we could collectively drool over the brand spanking new road bikes.

And that’s when it happened. We fell in love:


30 speed drivertrain, Kenda Kriterium tires, ALUXX SL frame, road-smoothing carbon fork (whatever that means). Damn, that’s one sexy bike. I wanna take it home and ride it. My butt wants to be up on it. I could go on.

Lust, love, call it want you want, but that bike will be mine. The only hitch, unsurprisingly, is that all that sexiness comes at a hefty price. I won’t even go into the exact figures, but Senate Prez Terry Murray would definitely have yelled out an emphatic “Cha-Ching!” had she been with us on Saturday.

But hey, someone’s gotta stimulate the economy and I intend to do my part- Time to take this training battle to the streets!

"Just keep pedaling"

Mike kicking off this morning's rogue a.m. spin class: "Don't slow down just because it looks like I'm taking it easy. I have stitches in my abdominal, so I'm not really sure how this is gonna go. But even if I'm slow, keep pedaling. If you see blood streaming down my leg, don't worry. Just keep pedaling."

Luckily, Mike survived (and blood free!). As did Les and I. Morning spin accomplished, training now seriously underway.

Pan-Mass Cha(lle)nge

Paid for by viewers like you.

Even though I'm pretty sure Les and I are collectively responsible for half of our blog's hits, other people are apparently reading this thing as well, so I just wanna take a minute to say THANK YOU. Whether it's conveyed through words of encouragement, comments to our posts, monetary donations, or just a silent increase in this page's view count, your support is incredibly important to us and we are forever grateful.

To keep this dialogue going, I wanted to post a little graphic love that just came our way from our most consistent commenter, the infamous Neel Chaudhury:

Thanks Neel!

If you find *yourself* doodling about me and les (in relation to the Pan-Mass Challenge, not just cause you're drawing hearts around our names in your trapper keeper), send your drawings our way and we'll put them up! In fact, if you've got anything you wanna throw into the mix- a story, a photo, an animation, you name it - we'd love to hear from ya.

Thanks again!

1st Ride of Season Results in Skateboarder Attack!

Sunday afternoon, the bike is all geared up for the first ride, my legs and lungs however were not, but I pushed through the 20 flat miles anyway. On the last mile of the ride, I was headed down Comm Ave in Brighton. Off on the side road to the right, where all the cars park, I was coming down a hill when out of the blue a pack of wild skateboarders uncontrollably fly out of a side street!
I try to remain calm, and attempt to think quickly. It’s pretty clear that one of the ten is going to hit me, and sure enough I hear one start to yell “oh shit, oh shit.” At this point I realize that if I slam on my breaks I risk being thrown from my bike or being hit by one of the other nuts in the pack, so I brace myself and keep straight.
The skateboarder jumps off his board and the board runs between my front and back tire…..I’ve taken a few minutes to give you a little re-inaction of the event.




Mr. Skateboarder, If you are reading this, I hope you are ok. You seemed ok as you hopped out of the way and said “yes, I’m fine” but maybe that’s just you being a big tough skateboarder in front of your skateboarder gang. Thank you for not crashing into me, and next time you should be wearing a helmet!

"When In Doubt, Look Good"

Here’s another gem that Mike loves to whip out at that midway point in every class when heat and exhaustion start to take over. The theory behind “when in doubt, look good,” is that no matter how tired you are, you’ve gotta remain in good form. It’s the difference between slumping over your handle bars and looking like you’d welcome death; and keeping your arms loose, your butt back and your legs strong.

But let’s get serious- on Pan Mass Challenge weekend, every rider is going to be showing off the impeccable form they’ve been working on for months. If I really wanna stand out (which I always do), I need to focus on the true essence of looking good: A kickass jersey and a pimped out ride.

Which makes this a good opportunity to talk a little bit more about why this ride is so important to me. Come that first weekend in August, I will be riding in memory of my Grandma Murray, who died of pancreatic cancer last year.

My Grandma was my favorite person.

She was also a witch. In fact, she was one in a long line of witches that currently ends with my sister and myself. Now, don’t go getting the wrong idea- my Grandma was a good witch...unlike her sister – my Great Aunt Lorraine – who we were always told had a streak of black magic in her. While my Great Aunt never embraced the wicked witch title, even by her own account it would be fair to describe her as a retired psychic turned animal healer.

I am not even kidding. Here’s a rough family tree:


Lemme give you a little example of what this all means: A few years ago, my cousin was preparing to celebrate her bat mitzvah and sent out invitations to the entire family telling them just that. Well, when my Great Aunt received the invite, she RSVPed that she would be unable to attend the ceremony – at this point, 3 months away – because she KNEW that her cat would be sick. Again, I am not even kidding. To make up for her absence, my Great Aunt sent a check. Not surprisingly, this response was poorly received by my cousin’s family, who proceeded to rip up the check and mail the pieces back to my Great Aunt. Rinse and repeat this absurdity a couple of times and what ensued was a cross-continental, snail mail battle the likes of which this country has never seen before. Of course, come bat mitzvah day, my Great Aunt swore her cat was even sicker than she had foreseen…

But, okay, I just got way off track. My Grandma was not that kind of witch, at least, not for the most part. There was, of course, that one time when my Grandma and Grandpa had just started dating and my Grandma got wind that my Grandpa was seeing another girl on the side. Well, like any love-struck witch would do, my Grandma found a picture of the little hussy and stuck some pins right in her gut...

...within a week the girl was in the hospital with a burst appendix, or at least that’s how the family legend goes.

Then there was the time that my Grandma – a dedicated figure skating fan – made a voodoo doll of Michelle Kwan and proceeded to stick needles in its knees for politically incorrect reasons I won’t even get into...

...now even though Michelle didn't meet the same end as Nancy Kerrigan, she did have enough stumbles to keep her from the gold, and my Grandma never stopped happily taking credit for that fact.

Yep, like I said, my Grandma was a badass witch, and when she passed away last year, I was the one to inherit her witch’s hat and spell books to carry on the tradition. So when I was thinking of ways to personalize my PMC riding outfit, it didn’t take long to land on a witch theme. Thing is, my grandma’s witch’s hat is about 3 feet tall- not exactly the aerodynamic accessory I had in mind.

As a substitute, I’m gonna use the next best thing and glue a *mini* witch’s hat right onto my helmet. And for my jersey, which is still very much in the design phase, I’m going to incorporate my favorite photo of Grandma.

Basically, this is what I'll look like on PanMass Challenge weekend:


So forget the doubt. I'll definitely be lookin' goooooooood.

Reform Before Revenue

Mind over matter - if you don't mind, it don't matter.

In what I can only describe as a shit storm of motivation, my spin instructor unleashed his full arsenal of inspirational quotes during last Thursday's class. And not just classics like HYDRATE OR DIE, but a slew of long-forgotten gems I haven't heard him utter in over a year. In fact, had I not been there to witness the spectacle firsthand, I wouldn't have believed anyone could pack that many catchphrases into a single hour-- which I guess is just another example of why Mike continues to amaze me for reasons that go far beyond his physical prowess.

I did my best to remember as many of Mike's phrases as I could, but by the class's 45 minute mark, I had switched into pure survival mode and was barely hearing - never mind remembering - what was coming out of his mouth. Still, I was able to recreate a pretty healthy list of quotes and will be using them to give some semblance of structure to my next few posts- starting with this one.

"Mind over matter- if you don't mind, it don't matter."

With 192 miles to bike over 2 days, the main focus of Les's and my training is physical- and rightly so. Just look at the core muscles we'll be exhausting from now until August: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SyLSEnYPv8&feature=related. As an aside, I think that clip might have been the inspiration for Robbie William's freaky Rock DJ music video circa 2000 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BOyvOsMqk4&annotation_id=annotation_690565&feature=iv). But I digress.

As important as our gym sessions are, there is a point in every long ride when your body wants to stop, when your leg muscles scream that they *can't* go any farther, and when the remaining miles seem downright impossible. It's at this point that mind takes over matter. During training, I use music to help overcome this critical juncture, but during official rides, ipods and the like are usually discouraged, if not straight up prohibited.

Without the aid of music, you've gotta come up with some pretty creative ways to pass the miles, but even though I think I have a pretty (overly) active imagination, this ride is going to be ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY TWO FREAKIN MILES LONG and there are only so many ninja fighting scenes and high speed chases I can dream up (Yes. That's what I think about when I ride.) Luckily, Les and I have come up with a solution: The Turntable Bike.

Hear me out. When a DJ is mixing at a club, he's got 2 turntables (and a microphone), right? Well when a biker is riding, he's got 2 spinning wheels (and a handlebar bell)... see where this is going?

It's no new idea to harness a bike's spinning power to create sound- I mean, kids have been attaching playing cards to wheel spokes for decades, but it's 2009- time to take this idea to the next level.

If we simply replace the wheel spokes with records, and rig the break clamps to double as turntable needles, well, we've pretty much created a party in motion.

Still not convinced? Here's a rough diagram for all you nay-sayers:



Problem solved. You're welcome.

Weekend Converstations

D: it's really nice outside!
L: yea, we should get on our bikes!
D: let's walk to Target, I need new sheets!
L: how far is it?
D: 3 miles
L: umm, ill just walk with you to comm ave. 3 miles is too far.

FYI- the PMC ride is 192 miles.


Place: Starbucks coffee line. Coolidge Corner
D: so, les what are you getting?
Random guy bumps into Les
L: Pissed off!