They so nice like priceless

Bikes suffice

They so nice like priceless

Working on my calves

Triceps and biceps

Bypass the gas

Stopped at traffic lights

I get around town

Without a drivers license

Good lyrics, Mark Ronson, and accurate! But not quite as catchy as your ultra-catchy-can't-go-wrong-with-Bruno-Mars "Uptown Funk." (Check out the video, if you haven't seen it. It's kind of funny how Mark Ronson is just lingering in the background of every scene.)

While my hubby has been pedaling around town pretty consistently and admirably this January, my biking this month has been a bit more spotty. But a new page of the calendar - and a new leaf? - turns on Sunday.

What's been keeping me busy since I got back from England? Planning trivia night. I got all of the food and space details worked out with Ol' Mexico, got some friends lined up to volunteer, and have been hoofing it around town, soliciting donations for prizes and raffles.

What I've got lined up so far: a gift card from A Cupcake Social, something from Angry Catfish bike and coffee shop (we're discussing a gift card and/or a mug and/or a pint glass and/or a t-shirt), homemade mittens and a homemade necklace from Stacy, and a homemade scarf from Keisha, with promising initial responses from Cafe Latte, Salut, and Northbound Smokehouse Brewpub, initial outreach to some other places, and a bunch more on the list to seek out. I'll do more on this front this weekend. I'm hoping that, like this year, the planning and execution of this event will jump start my fundraising for the year. Here is a handy Link to Donate to the MS Society and Support Maggie!

Also on deck for this weekend: I have the MS team captain rally tomorrow, where I learn any new things I need to know about this year's rides, we get an update on all the good stuff being done with funds and progress made with research, we learn about fundraising incentives, etc. Most importantly, I think that my going results in my team having registration fees for three new riders waived. That's an excellent recruitment tool.

Trivia details:


Friday, March 20, 2015, 7:00 p.m.
Ol’ Mexico (1754 Lexington Avenue North; Roseville)

$25 per person (sign up individually or as a 6-person team) - includes taco buffet, chips, & salsa 

Prizes for the winning team; booby prize for the losing team; 50-50, heads & tails, and other drawings throughout the night

Email or call Maggie to sign up - - Please join us!

Needing more flair

"I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people." - Edith Sitwell

This quote doesn't describe me, a middle-of-the-pack kind of girl. I think it totally describes this fantastically untraditional guy that Matt and I saw for the second time today. I'd like to be more like that guy, showing a little flair in my everyday life.

We rode our fat bikes (totally not needed on the pretty dry pavement) to the Stone Arch Bridge this a.m. and met my friend Steve to take part in the filming of a lot of people cycling over the bridge. [The film clip will be shown at the Winter Cycling Congress meeting in the Netherlands next month. The guy who organized the shoot is vying for the meeting to be held in Minneapolis next year.]

It's good it was a warm, dry day and that there were plenty of free donuts and coffee; the drone with the camera didn't arrive for quite some time, so there was a lot of standing around and bike talk.

While talking to a guy with a shark helmet cover, I saw an older guy wearing a skirt and purple Chuck Taylors. I looked at Matt, who instantaneously confirmed that this guy is the same guy we saw in May, rollerskating on the Greenway, wearing a gold mini dress, a red belt, and red tights, with his full beard and long, grey hair.

I love his style.

Corrective Action

This fall, a local musician rode his bike down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans, with his guitar and banjo, playing small shows on farms along the way.

I read his Facebook posts as he was on his trip. Tonight, he was at my local bike shop, the Angry Catfish, playing songs, reading poems, talking about his trip, reflecting on biking.

In one of his poems, he says: If there is a corrective action, it is to always ride a bike. I really liked that and wrote it down. In another poem, sort of an ode to cyclists, he said: We know the weather by being out in it.

While all this talk, on the heels of a vacation, made me wish I was just riding my bike for at least a week - if not a month - rather than doing whatever it is I do every day, it wasn't a sad night.

I loved the event, from walking to the local bike shop to being greeted by name by the staff, from having Dan introduce me to a guy he knows who started a biking magazine and was the interviewer of the musician to drinking the free local beer, from hanging out with our former roommate who biked to the shop to seeing local businesses recognized for their sponsorship of the ride and the event.

A great neighborhood in a great city. A great community.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/MS150Maggie2015

Lotsa Bikes in England

I will make some generalizations.

Cyclists in London are sort of like cyclists in Minneapolis - decent bikes, decent gear, and a decent amount of fluorescent yellow so as not to get hit by those big double-decker buses. Cyclists in Oxford and Cambridge are somewhat similar to each other - mostly students, pretty basic bikes, no gear (e.g., no helmets, no clothing to be comfortable in the rain in 30-degree temps). It felt like there were more bikes in Oxford than in Cambridge, but that in Cambridge, there were more non-student riders with some better bikes and gear, such as waterproof panniers. The cyclists near Fareham, Portsmouth, and Southampton seemed to be like the ones in London, but I wasn't in those cities on a weekday, so it is hard to say. Since all of my statements are generalizations, though, I think I'm safe.

Although our Oxford hotel had bikes I could have used, I did not ride. Not only was it cold and rainy, but I had a hard time understanding, reliably, the traffic patterns. It was hard enough to cross the street on foot. I decided I'd rather come home alive and/or without a broken leg.

Instead, I walked and walked and walked many hours every day. I saw a lot and took a lot of pictures, and enjoyed drinking coffee and tea all day long, while spending my vacation with my sister and the Harris family.

Typical sight in Oxford (photo from some blog from Google images)

Next up: (1) Resuming work while trying to get back in the swing of fat biking and swimming to not be too out of shape when spring rolls around. (2) Planning that trivia night, since I put down a deposit! (3) Attending a team captain meeting for the MS bike rides and getting stragglers to join my two biking teams. (4) Soliciting donations.

England Bound

Greetings from Delta Flight 12, Seat 31C.

It feels weird and yet uber technologically advanced (for me, anyhow; it's like I'm on the Enterprise or something!) to be updating my blog from an airplane. If I was more creative, I'd take my camera into the very nearby bathroom to recreate these super hilarious self-portraits in the Flemish style: http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/photography/sa-flemish.php
For a couple of years, I've been looking at them and cracking up each time. I insist you look. Really! Do it! You will not be disappointed.

Anyhow, I'm punchy as I embark on a 10-day vacation to jolly olde England. I'm flying solo, meeting my sister (who is simultaneously flying from San Fran) for a week in London, Oxford, and Cambridge, and then headed down, sans hermana, to visit some of my favorite people - Claire, Paul, and kids - in the southern part of the country for a too-short (in my mind, probably not theirs) weekend before heading home.

Our time in London will be limited, but I'm hoping to tool around Oxford and Cambridge a bit via bike, despite the forecasted rain.

The last time I went to Europe, I also flew solo. It feels a little different at age 42 than at age 19. For one thing, the offer of free alcohol doesn't matter. I'm also not on my way to visit a boyfriend that I knew was not a long-term prospect (which is an interesting story, sort of, since we traveled around Europe together while breaking up). And my passport photo has filled out a bit, too, as well as lost a nose ring.

I am so lucky that I am able to go. I think this trip also was a win for my husband, who saw less budgetary opposition to his purchase of a new bike, because it's hard to say we can't swing it when I'm traveling across the ocean, no? Maybe my husband and sister are in cahoots on this?

I was talking to my friend Jen yesterday and she used the phrase, "embarrassment of virtues" to describe me. My mind auto-filled the blank as embarrassment of riches (financial security, health, great family and friends), to which I'd agree, although I was pretty amused once I processed what she said.

What was she referring to, dear friends? Trivia! Mark your calendars for the night of 3/20 at Ol' Mexico. I'm organizing another trivia night to raise money for the MS Society. It will be fun. Although now I have my work cut out for me when I return to the states...

Oh, hey, want to donate to the MS Society? Here's the link to support my fundraising efforts. It is that time again.
http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/MS150Maggie2015

(In the interest of not getting sued, the bike image was found via Google at http://hannah-evelyn.blogspot.com; I'm not quite sure why I feel obligated to credit my source this one time. Also, the photo on the plane is aligned correctly on my phone and the draft blog, but isn't right on the final blog. I guess I'm not on the Enterprise after all.)

Quit Yer Bitchin'

When I was a kid, Grandma and Grandpa Mahoney had picture of a bear cub amidst some wild flowers hanging on the kitchen wall, with the phrase "Quit yer bitchin'!" on it. It always confused me; I couldn't figure out why it featured a bear cub. Regardless, it amused me to no end because kids rarely heard, and weren't allowed to say, those types of words.

Yesterday, I did some cleaning and found my notes for getting donations for team jerseys, which I didn't find time for in the fall and am thinking it may be too late.  (Which might actually be true.) Then today I was realizing I haven't planned a trivia night like I did last year to help raise money for the MS Society, and was thinking it is probably too late to get it done before mid-March, when hopefully I can start (road) biking regularly outside.

I went for a short fat bike ride late this afternoon and loosely mulled over my goal for this year: to focus on having good quality activities rather than being busy. I thought, "Meh, maybe I'll skip trivia."

While riding, I saw a "herd" of six deer and a... flock? gaggle? of six turkeys at Fort Snelling State Park. It was very cool to sit and watch them. One deer just stared right back. It was all rather peaceful.

When I got home, Dan told me his plans to meet a friend were delayed by an hour because the friend had to deal with some unexpected care issues for his dad, who was just hospitalized due to complications from MS.

The trivia night was a good deal of work last year, but fun to do and we raised a decent amount money for the MS Society. In the spirit of quitting my bitchin', I've decided that I'm going to plan another one for this winter or spring. That's why I do all this, right?

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/MS150Maggie2015