Mackerel Sky

Last night riding my bike home from Church of Craft the sky looked awesome. The moon was full and there were a million tiny clouds blopped evenly over the whole thing, and that illusion happened where you're looking up at the sky through the trees and it feels like the sky is moving the same speed you are and the trees are staying still. The leaves of the trees were lit up grayish green by the streetlights and night was that inky color of darkish blue it always turns in NYC in September. Where did the summer go?

Just another of those tiny moments that made me glad I was on my bike. Impossible to photograph, and impossible to experience any other way. Wikipedia tells me it was a Mackerel Sky.

North Fork 2008

I rode the North Fork Century yesterday. No hills, no thunderstorms, no bottled water, lots and lots of friendly people and pretty farms and wineries and wetlands and osprey nests and sweet, sweet flat and smooth roads. There were a few eensy rolling hills that were just big enough to be fun - push really hard to the bottom and you'll coast to the top! I took a wrong turn and wound up on the 66 mile route instead of the 100 (this is kind of a theme with me), but that was ok - I've barely been riding except for occasional commuting since the Harlem Valley ride, and I still felt pretty great at the finish. And I got to be on the first bus back, so I was home again before dark. Hopefully I'll be ready for Tour de Pink in October!

Here's a drawing of me trying to sleep on the bus on the way home. I had really weird dreams, but I forget what they were.Oh, and in the picture I'm wearing the old school wool jersey ex-boyfriend Scott gave me for my birthday. He had it embroidered to say my last name in block letters and "I knit squids" in cursive underneath. Coolest present ever.

Harlem Valley Rain (uh... Rail) Ride

On Sunday I did the Harlem Valley Rail Ride - a hundred miles of gorgeous, hilly country roads. It totally kicked my ass.

For starters, the bus that took us from NYC to Millerton got lost or something on the way up to the start - we were supposed to start by 7:30 but didn't get in until quarter of nine.

Harlem Valley is one of those choose-your-own-adventure rides where you get to choose between 30, 55, 75, or 100 miles. The first choice I got was between the 75 and 100. It was only 20 miles in and I was still feeling fresh as an underslept daisy - "75?" I thought, "I didn't get up at 3 am to ride 75!" The next choice was between the 55 and the 100 - no real question there, but I found myself cussing as the route for the 100 went up the meanest hill ever. It was one of those sneaky and extra-mean hills that curves up and up with about a dozen false summits - where the light coming through the trees tricks you into thinking the next turn will take you down, when of course it just goes further up. I walked some of it, and a fella with stronger legs and lower gears than me passed by, but he wasn't going much faster.

After the worst of the steepness I was back on my bike again, and finally got paid back with a long, gorgeous descent - the woods opened up into farmlands and the sun came out for a while. I felt awesome and started singing Kimya Dawson and Devendra Banhart songs as loud as I could until somebody caught up on me and I got embarrassed. Why is it that even though I'm totally comfortable spending all day zipping along in skintight orange, red and shiny pink spandex I still felt like I'd gotten caught singing in the shower?

After the next rest stop I started freaking out about time and pushed pretty hard for the next 20 miles or so. My average speed crept up to where I felt comfortable again. Then there was this cloud. It was totally gigantic and opaque and grey. I could feel when I was under it 'cause it got 20 degrees colder. Bad news indeed. It started raining, then it started storming. It was freezing cold. Then we had to climb again. It was pretty fierce, and for a while it wasn't fun any more. I pushed on, hoping to get to the next rest stop and maybe bail out and get sagged to the end, but the stop had been abandoned 'cause of the storm, which sucked extra 'cause I was running out of water.

More rain, more climbing. A sag truck came by full and said they'd come get me as soon as they could. Somehow that made it better - I'd just go as far as I could until the truck came to scoop me up. I caught up on a few people who were walking and hopped off to walk with them, glad to have company for a while. Eventually the rain got less fierce and we all rode some more. Lots of it was really pretty. Finally the sag folks came back and told us to get in the truck, not giving us the option not to. They drove us all backwards down the rest of the course looking for more stragglers. The sun came out again, for keeps this time. They dropped everybody off at the next rest stop (maybe 2 miles ahead of where they'd picked me up) and pointed us down a mercifully flat shortcut down the rail trail, then on some roads I thankfully knew 'cause I'd ridden them before visiting my friend Bonnie.

I finally made it to the finish at about 5:30. The festival at the end had been rained out, and they didn't have any non-meat food left except a couple of hamburger buns. My toes were beyond wrinkled and I was totally filthy, but I had some dry clothes to change into. I got on the bus, then the subway, and finally got home at about 10:30. I went to bed feeling feverish and with a wicked sore throat.

Sometimes I don't get why this was so fun. But it was, it was really super fun - I'd do it again in a second.

On Top of Bear Mountain, All Covered with Cheese...

I like to ride my bike to the top of bear mountain once a year. This year's highly photoshopped snap from the top is brought to you by the top of my head and the sweat of my brow:

Trust me, my un-cropped sweaty mug wasn't pretty enough to share. 2 miles of up up up = dorky, happy, exhausted face and lovely pink eyes.

NYC-area bikers, this site is an awesome resource full of maps and potential rides, lots of which connect to Metro North with a little fudging. I basically took the route here (only backwards) but continued to the end of Seven Lakes Parkway and took the train back home from Suffern - about 65 miles with lots of hills. A few miles of really busy roads at the end, but way more fun than zigzagging back to the GW Bridge through suburban Jersey. And I love Harriman state park - the parkways through it are nearly car-free (though highly favored by motorcycles), and gorgeous - woodsy for miles and an hour or so from Manhattan.

The Big Loop Through the Rockaways - Now Only Kind of Busted

Monday morning I headed out for my best fave inside-the-five-boroughs NYC bike ride - a 40-ish mile loop from my doorstep to the Rockaways and back again.

When it's totally functional, here's how it works: You go down Bedford Ave (on-street bike lane, mostly observed), or otherwise get yourself to Sheepshead Bay, then pick up an off-street bike lane that goes along the Belt Parkway for 7 or 8 miles. Take a little detour through Howard Beach and then down Cross-Bay Boulevard you go - over the little islands of Jamaica bay. Then cross the Cross-Bay bridge to Rockaway Beach. Sing the Rock-Rock-Rock-Rockaway beach song a couple times, look at the Atlantic Ocean (or lock your bike up and jump in), and head west a couple miles before crossing the Marine Parkway Bridge back over to the Brooklyn mainland. Up Flatbush Avenue for a mile or so (another off-street bike lane) and you pick up the trail back to Sheepshead Bay and home again. An almost-traffic free 40 miles!

Last summer, the loop dead ended at a big old fence where the bike lane was under construction at the Fountain Avenue Landfill (marked on the Bike Map as Spring Creek Park - see, New York has so much green space!)

On Monday's ride, there was a shiny new bike lane past the being-restored landfill, but a new dead-end at the Cross-Bay bridge - the bike and ped crossing is being worked on. I turned around and went back the way I came (headwind became a tailwind - yay!), but here's what I just found out:

I called 311 (311 rules) and got transferred to somebody at the MTA, which runs the bridge - he told me the bike and pedestrian access will be out until October, but there's a free shuttle that runs every 15 minutes from 7am to 9pm that takes bikes, too. It picks up at the deli parking lot on the north side (it's the last thing before the bridge), and the McDonalds on the South side. So if you're up for an assist across the bridge, (or feel like stopping for lunch at the Deli), the big loop is up and running again!


The images are from the NYC Bike Map. Get your own!

Montauk!

So yesterday I rode the Montauk Century - a hundred mile ride from Babylon, NY to the end of Long Island. It's a totally high-tech, more-than-all-day affair. I left my house at 3 a.m. and hopped the subway to Penn station, put my bike on a truck and took the Long Island Railroad to Babylon with a zillion other underslept, bleary-eyed, excited bikers. Then I picked up my bike in Babylon, rode the whole way to the end of Long Island, took a shower in a totally magical shower truck, put my bike back on a truck, got back on the train, picked up my bike again at Penn Station, and got home again at 11 p.m. Long day, no?

I'm really bad at writing about bike rides, especially the day after when I still feel kind of stupid with endorphins. Stupid in a good way -- slowed down and a little bit sore and a wee bit sunburned - I slathered my shoulders when I changed into my sleeveless jersey, but I missed a spot on each side, so today I've got ouchy pink wings on my back - d'oh! The ride was pretty great. I averaged 13 miles an hour, rest stops included. The south shore of Long Island is mercifully flat, except for some little rolly hills at the end - hardly any changing gears, just go, go, go... A few times I got picked up by some speedy groups zooming along at 22 miles an hour, and a couple other times I got stuck in a slow clump of team-in-training folks hamming it up for their camera truck, so it all evened out. It was sunny most of the time, but got cold and clammy at the end. My spirits were pretty good throughout - I talked to lots of people and yelled wheee! a few times and sang a couple songs, but I was still totally glad to reach the finish without bonking and just in time to not get rained on.

Nature highlights - A white heron flew over me on the outskirts of one of the cute towns in the Hamptons with its neck all squiggly. I'm such a new yorker now that I had to google "white s-neck bird" to figure out what it was I'd seen. Nature low-lights - cases and cases of bottled water, and not even a pretense of recycling! Boo! Spigots are good for the earth, or at least way less bad than giving three thousand bicyclists nine thousand plastic bottles! (Yes, I know trucking my bike the entire length of Long Island kind of negates the whole one-less-car mentality, but still.) Nature low-light number two: Gu packets galore. Just put them pack in your pocket, dorks! Grrr!

North Fork

I rode the North Fork century on Sunday. It's another of those get up at 2:30, check in at 4:30, take a bus to the start rides. But it's worth it to get way the heck out of town. Mostly empty back roads with a few hairy stretches on the main drag. Highlight number one - An office-mate's hubby caught up with me en route and we kept pace together for most of the ride. Highlight number two: Jaywalking Quail! A family of three of them crossed our path.

Here are some numbers: I got up at 2:30, checked in at 4:30, the bus left at 5:30, I started riding at 8:23 and finished at 3:28 (14 miles an hour counting stops - pretty fast for me!), the bus home left at 6:30 and I got home again at 10:00. Lots of fun, but a long, long day.

Hey Fan Club!

I'm back from my big bike trip - from Syracuse, NY to Portland, Maine all by my lonesome, via the Adirondacks, much Vermont, a hot second of Canada, eye-poppingly gorgeous New Hampshire mountain passes, and the awesomest Maine tidal beach ever. It was a great, great trip.

The whole day-by-day story is up here on crazyguyonabike.

The full set of pics are up here on picasa.

I texted friends & fam from the road. That seems like that little bit belongs here, so here it is. The links on the dates go to the full travelog page.

July 4 (Syracuse, NY)
Hey fan club! I'm in blah n rainy Syracuse. Airport hotels are like another world. Start riding tomorrow at the brick of dawn. Love, d

July 5 (White Lake, NY)
Hey there fan club. Safe n warm in White Lake ny just inside the park. 85 miles today n i feel good. Host fam had a cookout and raspberry pie!

July 7 (Keene Valley, NY)
Hi. Made it to keene valley and ate delicious pie! I'm kinda sore but pretty ok. Camped last night @ Forked Lake. Ridiculously beautiful all day, rain and all!

July 8 (Grand Isle, VT)
Hi again. Poured on me all day but I stayed dry. Yay poncho! Then I hit lake champlain n the sky got gentle. Camping on grand isle tonight. I love icy hot!

July 9 (Enosburg Falls, VT)
Hey kids. I'm in Enosburg falls vt almost in canada. Stormed on me all day today. Still hoping to see some stars tonight. ate 1/2 a blueberry pie for lunch!

July 10 (Lyndonville, VT)
Hi fan club. I'm in lyndonville vt almost to nh. No rain today! Fog then 90 deg. 85 miles of hot n stinky. More storms coming tonight. I want stars!

July 11 (Twin Mountain, VT)
Hey Fan club! I'm in twin mtn NH. Set up camp just before the rain hit. busted my chain this moning n got a hitch to littleton. 100 miles to portland..or more!

July 12 (Sweden, ME)
Hi fc. Maine smells great! Finally a clear sunny day. Crawford notch this morning then pretty pack roads n fluffy clouds. Camping between sweden n norway. Stars!



July 13 (Brunswick, ME)
Hey kids I'm in Brunswick ME. Long hot windy day down the mountains into farmland then sprawl. Ocean tomorrow! Ps I ate an apple pie n a tub of berries 4 lunch!

July 14 (Popham Beach, ME)
I made it! I'm at Popham Beach. Beau T Ful here.

July 15 (Portland, ME)
Hi all. Drying out in ptld. 53 miles today with one hell of a T storm. Rolling thunder, lots of fun. Swam in the ocean this morning. Brrr!

Mercy!

I leave Wednesday for the big trip. Here we go! I've spent countless hours tracing out my hoped-for route (the end of the Northern Tier with a detour around the Green Mountain Loop) across the contour lines of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. I made myself a faboo saddlebag. I've found some friends and friends-of-friends to stay with en route. I've trained and tuned up my bike. I've been 90% packed for more than a week. I'm just about as ready for this as I'm gonna get.

Today I loaded everything up and took Mercy for a test spin down to the beach and the only dirt road I know in NYC outside of Staten Island. The good news: Nothing fell off or even jiggled very much! The other good news: It still felt really good with most of the weight up front now that it's fully loaded (~25 pounds of gear in the front, maybe 10 in the back with 4 full water bottles). The bad news: I think the raincoat material I used for the saddlebag is a bit flimsy and prone to tearing. Not that there's a real danger of it falling apart on the road, but it might wind up a rack-top trunk instead of a saddlebag a few days in.

A few more snaps all loaded up:
The bike is a 70's (I'm guessing) Mercier mixte, with all the parts switched out from when I got it except the headset, brakes, bars, and fenders.
Gear-heads, here's the fine print:

Stronglight 99 triple cranks
Eggbeater pedals
Original mafac racer brakes & levers
Original stronglight headset
SRAM long-cage plastic rear derailleur
Shimano ??? front derailleur
Shimano bar-end friction shifters
XT 9-speed cassette, of which 8 are usable due to wacky mixte geometry (the middle stays get in the way, so I set the r/d limit screws as if the smallest cog wasn't there)
Vittoria Rando 700 x 32 tires
Brooks Pro saddle (borrowed from my commuter)
The front rack is an Old Man Mountain that mounts using a special skewer. The up-side for me: it's super easy to install ( the front rack won't fit in my bike box so I'll need to re-assemble it in my hotel room) The down-side: you have to pull the skewer the whole way out to change a front flat.

Finally, here it is all boxed up! I got a fancy aircaddy box that lets me put the bike on the plane without disassembling it -- the back wheel is still on -- I just had to pull the seat and front wheel and turn the bars backwards.

Thanks, everyone for your well-wishes! My next bike-y post will have the mountains in the background instead of my porch! There will be stars, it'll be cold at night, and I'll eat lots of pie. Hooray!

Third Century - accidental Metric

It's my 33rd birthday, and I did the Ride for Autism in Jersey today. It got off to a rocky start. I was up at 5 after 4 hours of sleep, with no voice left after screaming my head off for the Bronx Gridlock at rollerderby last night. By 5:30 I was in the car and on my way to New Jersey. I somehow got myself ridiculously lost, taking the wrong bridge from Staten Island.

I have this thing about getting lost in New Jersey. Like one time, E and I tried to pick up our cats from Newark airport using the U-Haul truck we'd just moved to New York in. She got out of the truck to pick them up and I had to circle around the airport grounds and check back every now and then. I nearly slammed the truck into a bridge with low clearance, then somehow got kicked out of the airport altogether and had to turn around and make it back again. Bad news in so many ways.

Or this other time, on my 29th birthday, I blew off work and did a long ride bushwhacking my way south through the 'burbs from the George Washington bridge without a map, figuring I'd wind up in Staten Island eventually, or take the boat from Monmouth if I was making good enough time. I wound up by the Meadowlands stadium and couldn't figure a way homeward that didn't involve walking my bike along the shoulder of the freeway. Eventually I wound up hopping a tipped-over fence, bike in tow, and whacking through some marshy underbrush to get back onto the surface roads. I seem to be doomed to repeat the time in high school when my family got lost on our european vacation, trying to walk into downtown Paris from our hotel - all five of us wound up walking on the shoulder of Autoroute A4. But I digress - back to this morning:

After much fretting and 2 gas stations' worth of directions, I made it down to the community college in Monmouth where the ride started. I pulled my bike out of the car and pumped up my front tire, which promptly exploded with a valve tear. Somebody passed by and said "hey, your day's gotta go uphill from here!" Thanks!

I didn't get going 'til almost 8:00. I'd been planning to be on the course by 7. Oh well. I figured I could cut it short and do the Metric instead if I wasn't feeling it. Which is what happened, but not on purpose - I missed some turns and spent some time following someone who wasn't on the route. About 35 miles in I realized I couldn't figure out where I was on the cue sheet any more, though there were other riders ahead and street was still marked for the route. Finally there was a rest stop and somebody pointed out for me where I was - "I'm not sure what you did, but you're 20 miles from the end now." So I took the last 20 miles of the ride easy, heading into the wind at a leisurely pace, glad that my getting lost worked out all right for me this time.

Highlights of the day: a family of geese crossing the road - mama goose, papa goose, baby goose. Hooray for geese! After the ride: a nap in the back yard. Even when the riding isn't so great, I love the post-ride high, and the few hours of feeling content with not doing anything at all. Also on the drive home: lunch and cheap sunglasses at the Cheesequake Travel Plaza. I don't know why exactly, but I love travel plazas. Bonus: the travel plaza had a penny smasher! Unfortunately, since parkway travel plazas aren't so much destinations in themselves, they were all pretty generic, so my new smashed penny doesn't say Cheesequake on it, but what can you do?

Bridges, Bridges, and More Bridges

So Saturday I did a 70-mile 5bbc ride that went over 26 bridges. The purple thing is an approximate map. I bailed out at the G.W. 'cause I had to ride home, shower and get up to the Bronx for Princess Bianca's birthday party by 5.

Here's the list of bridges we crossed:
Brooklyn Bridge
Union St. Bridge
9th St. Bridge
Carroll Ave. Bridge
3rd St. Bridge
Manhattan Bridge
Williamsburg Bridge
Pulaski Bridge
Roosevelt Island Bridge
Roosevelt Island Bridge again
Queensborough Bridge
63rd St. Pedestrian Bridge
Ward's Island Pedestrian Bridge
Unknown Ward's Island Pedestrian Bridge
Triborough Bridge
Willis Ave. Bridge
Third Ave. Bridge
Madison Ave. Bridge
145th St. Bridge
Macombs Dam Bridge
Inwood Park pedestrian Bridge
Henry Hudson Bridge
Broadway Bridge
University Ave. Bridge
Washington Bridge

(Then the Brooklyn again on the way home)

Ta Daa!

Montauk

I rode the 5BBC Montauk Century yesterday. It was fun! I was up at 2:30 in the morning to get to Penn Station on time, so it better have been! I forgot to take any pictures, so I drew one. I've been out to Montauk before, and the "LUNCH" place in Amagansett is the first real landmark. I got such a second wind when I started recognizing stuff and pushing to the end.

Also near the end, atop one of the rolly hills, when I found my eyes suddenly stinging with sweat, I was wobbling and about to pull over to the side to catch my breath, when somebody behind me yelled, "Hey! You can do it! The faster you go down this one the faster you'll go up the next!" I shifted up and pushed down the hill as hard as I could, suddenly feeling my pace come back and shouting, "Wheeeee!" Thank you, mystery lady! You totally made my day.

Pretty bikes I saw en route - a Custard Kogswell, a baby blue Kirk, and a lovely brown Vanilla.

the view from Travis avenue

Does this count as New York City? This snap of the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge was taken last summer off a little bridge on Travis Avenue in Staten Island. Why doesn't that hill in the background have any trees on it? Because it's the dump.