We started with wine tasting on our bikes. We stopped at Kristin & Eric’s for a Tecate and to bond with the turtles. We barbecued at el patio. We made it to McCarthy’s. It was an awesome celebration with my Cali peeps. Notice the party favors, orange beer koozies, I had made special for the party!
My friends and I, the Mustache Riders, won the bike commute challenge in SLO for the month of May! We took the most trips on our bikes. I rode my bike 140 miles this month for 101 trips. Our team of 10 rode a total of 1888 miles for 1512 trips saving 0.79 tons of co2. It was fun to drive my car as little as possible. I’m going to try to continue. My favorite part of it was noticing things on my bike I wouldn’t have noticed in my car, like the smell of freshly cut grass, sunsets, and all of the friends who saw me and waved hi who wouldn’t have noticed me in my car.
It all happened on a lovely Saturday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend. Me and some friends were riding our bikes across town to a cookout. I looked down and noticed my bike lock was falling through my basket and so I tried to grab it and recover it to a happier position where it wouldn’t get caught in my front tire. While I was wrestling the lock someone slowed down in front of me and I hit their back tire and lost control of my bike and fell on the street on my right side. I have road rash on my wrist, elbow, side, a bruise on my leg, my shoulder was pretty sore for a few days, and a bruised ego. My beautiful, green, 1977 schwinn suburban was injured as well, the basket and fender were a little bent out of shape. Lesson learned: Don’t use those crappy locks that don’t coil around your bike. Lesson #2: Maybe don’t use those crappy locks when you’ve had a few beers and bicycling.
I was due for a crash. It had been a while. I can’t remember the last time I crashed on my bike in fact. It reminds me of learning to ride a bike. First of all it took forever, as my brother Billy learned at 3 years old and it took me until I was 7. Immediately after I learned I crashed my bike and broke my arm and had to wear bread bags on my arm all summer while I played in the slip ‘n slide.
I “competed” in Wildflower Triathlon today as relay team #8135, aka Xanadu, with Shaba swimming a mile, I biked 24 miles, and Meghan running 6 miles. We did the shorter olympic distance but the long distance was twice as long. Yes, that’s right, we did the least amount of physical activity of anyone competing in the event by doing the olympic distance with a relay team. The people who won the long distance completed all 3 courses in like 4 hours and the olympic distance in 2 hours. It took me 2 hours just to finish the 24 mile bike course! Well 1:51 and 32 seconds to be exact. Talk about being fit! My friends completed the whole courses by themselves and kicked ass too. Jesse completed the olympic distance in 2:42 and Garrett in 2:28 and I am still waiting to hear about Johdan who I am sure killed the longer distance on Saturday. It was crazy to see so many people, of all ages, pushing their bodies to the absolute limit and the people just spectating and cheering were awesome. Our friend Hawk puts on an energizer bunny suit at the top of what’s known as “the nasty grade” to keep people going. Lots of naked bodies and silly screaming people to help pump you up. It made me want to get my old cheerleading uniform out. The triathlon actually started as a blues music festival so it still has the festival atmosphere, there were live bands playing all day, tons of people camping who weren’t competing, and lots of vendors, beer, and food booths. Another friend of ours hooked us up with special guest passes and we got in to special places and ate free catered food all weekend. We were totally spoiled. So, instead of eating typical camper fare I overate delicious catered food. Since our relay team didn’t race until Sunday I ate food and drank tecate all weekend. Instead of overexerting myself like most of the athletes and getting extra fit, I feel like I gained 10 pounds! Ha.
All in all it was a fantastic weekend. I hope that I am kicking ass like the 72 year old dude I saw on his bike when I’m older.
Click here to see the rest of my photos from the weekend. Click here to see me in action during the race.
I ran into a bee on my bike…See that little red dot with swelling around it on the center of my forehead? Yes, that’s where the bee nailed me. I was cruising along on my bike, minding my own business when “Ouch wtf, oowwwwww, omg it’s still on me, owwwww, wtf, i’ve got to stop, ow, my feet are clipped in oh god ew it’s still on my glove ouch wtf.” We stopped and Peter was kind enough to tend to me in distress and pull out the stinger which was lodged, and I mean lodged, in my forehead. I then proceeded to bleed and swell up on our ride home. Bee stings hurt.
Mike fought a curb and the curb won. While bicycling home from a local street fair in the dark last night Mike had a little bike spill. It has been a long time since I’ve seen a person eat the cement like that, probably since my brother was a little kamikaze on his green scooter that had a monkey face on the foot pad. I was riding slowly and Mike was sick of my wimpy pace as he was riding behind me so he came flying past me on my left. Then he cut in front of me and smack! this curb appeared where there wasn’t one before. Mike just kept sliding across the pavement, his face, ear, jaw and shoulder caught most of his fall and he seemed to slide forever, bike sliding behind him. I just screamed and jumped of my bike. See Mike’s injuries documented in the video below.
I rode my bike 55 miles yesterday in the Blue Cruise in Boise, Idaho. The bastards said it was a 50 mile ride but they lied and kept me on my bike for 55. It’s the farthest I’ve ever ridden my bike and the longest amount of time (3 hrs 40 minutes) too. It was in the countryside of Idaho and it was a beautiful day. Their were a lot of cow farms which made me feel sad for them and reassured me in my choice to not support that kind of agriculture.
“Roads were built for horses and then made smooth for bicycles. Cars came along much later, followed shortly by rampant obesity and rage.”
Click here to hear about Rep. Patrick McHenry’s ignorant hate speech toward bicycling as a way to save energy.
