Step out your cool suit, snap on your wet boots

Today, Stacy and I joined a couple hundred other riders on a short ride around Minneapolis, to kick off our pledge to ride our bikes every day in April. It was drizzly and 40 degrees when we met up on the big hill at Gold Medal Park and then assembled along the river.

Note unzipped right pocket, filling with water. Left pocket with electronics stayed relatively dry.

Shortly after beginning, it began to rain in earnest. While I was feeling kind of miserable going over the Mississippi - and back - with a 25+ mph wind blowing sharp rain drops into my face, I passed a little kid on a tiny bike, his glasses full of rain drops, and realized I should grow up. Besides having decent rain gear, I've ridden in way worse.

Once we got onto the Cedar Lake Trail, the rain mostly had stopped.

Kenilworth Trail

From the Cedar Lake Trail, we took the Kenilworth Trail to the Midtown Greenway to the Hiawatha Trail back to Gold Medal Park and the MS Society's food truck-filled parking lot.

Trying to look pensive, while striking an odd pose and showing off my yellow.

Today's ride was short - under 20 miles, but I feel sort of tired due to the cold, wet windy day. But it was similar to the first 75-mile day of the MS 150 last year, and we could face conditions like that again this year, so I should get used to riding in crummy weather again.

I forgot how variable spring can be. Yesterday, I took this shot of downtown from the Cedar Lake Trail, not realizing I'd be on the same trail again today.

The title of this post are some lyrics from Terence Trent D'Arby's Blame it on the Rain, which I thought were descriptive of Stacy's and my garb today. Go ahead, you know you want to relive the 80's. Listen. It's okay.

Unfortunately there's no video for Blame it on the Rain, but if you want to laugh, you can watch the video for Wishing Well (weird inserted dance shots, although he's good at the splits, but why is he wearing a sheriff's star?).

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

Bacon and cheap tequila

Bacon. Cheap tequila. Raw garlic. Roller coasters. Cabbage.

These are all things where moderation is prudent, in my mind.

Perhaps I'm not committed enough to cycling - or anything - to fully appreciate how it could be enjoyable to ride a bike 556.856 miles over 24 hours. Maybe my attitude stems from my inability to sustain 23 mph for an hour on flat land with a tailwind, while this guy averaged that pace over an entire 24 period. That's factoring in any quick stops for the bathroom (provided he didn't just always go while riding), to stretch out a cramp or his back/shoulders, or to jump on another bike when getting a flat tire.

This is amazing, and perplexing. Such is life.

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It's good to know your literary sources

I was going to start this post with, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers," to kick off a discussion of how great Friday's trivia night was.

And then it came back to me. Tennessee Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche being taken to an asylum after the very good looking Marlon Brando/Stanley helps prompt her final breakdown. I guess it is not a fitting quote at all (unless I were to explain how Twitter is driving me insane).

Good work, Vivien Leigh. 

So let's start over, shall we?

Trivia was fantastic! We had 72 players, 6 volunteers, and a whole bunch of prizes, tacos, cake, and cookies. We raised $1,902 in just a couple of hours, and it seemed like all of the people playing had lots of fun. It was easier to plan for this year, since we had a better idea of what we were doing.

If you, kind reader, live near me, please visit the businesses that donated the prizes: Angry Catfish, A Cupcake Social, Michael's Cycles, Salut, Cafe Latte, Mama's Pizza, Toasted, St. Paul Bagelry, Operation Om yoga, Snuffy's Malt Shop, and Cole's Salon Spa. Please also visit Ol' Mexico. Although we had to buy food, obviously, there was no fee to use the event space, they provided great service, and the staff working our event donated to the MS Society because they liked what we were doing. Fantastic.

This trivia cash has managed to get our team to 25% of its $30,000 fundraising goal, and me to 55% of my $4,000 goal, with 82 days remaining. It's looking good again this year!

When verifying my memory that the quote above was uttered by Blanche, I found some other quotes that perhaps are more fitting:

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give”--Winston Churchill
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”--Dalai Lama 
 “Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together”--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If life was about winning love, then this would be a good one, too (although I appreciate the point he was trying to make): “Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.”--Washington Irving 

Sure and begorrah

This photo, of the leprechaun with a helmet instead of the traditional (and surely realistic) top hat, reminded me of my bike ride to work.

I've been taking a new route the last week. There's a bike lane symbol painted in the bike lane, with a person on a bike, wearing what appears to be a baker's hat.

I think that I should get out of that lane, because it is reserved for people delivering croissants via bike.

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A Day of Biking and Ignored Responsibilities

My day, in a nutshell:

1. Woke up a little late.
2. Made fig muffins.
3. Got on my bike.
4. Arrived at yoga a little late.
5. Got on my bike.
6. Arrived at the coffee shop.
7. Drank coffee, had a snack, read my book.
8. Got on my bike.
9. Arrived at Stacy's right on time.
10. Got on my bike.
11. Rode with Stacy and Keisha (stopped to gawk at the huge new Surly Brewery).
12. Got on my bike.
13. Arrived home.
14. Ate a big dinner.

I feel like I was on vacation, ignoring stuff that probably should be done. This was my first time out on my road bike in 2015, and I'm feeling optimistic about my back not hurting this year, considering I rode over 50 miles, half of which I did as fast as possible.

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

This is the dawning of the age of... Aries?

This week, I witnessed some signs of spring: the song of the robin during my morning walk with the dog; high school kids waiting at the bus stop on a 40° day, wearing shorts; car windows cracked on a number of cars.

But then today, when doing laundry, I realized I have unique signs of spring in my life. There's a certain smell in the backyard, despite being diligent in cleaning up after the dog all winter. There's the bike grease in the cracks of my fingers and on the edges of my fingernails. There's the first commute in to work and finding the usually grungy shower in a particularly gross state. There's the great variability in daytime temps, requiring creativity and layers when commuting. And, most obvious to me today, there's the need to spray the armpits of my dirty biking shirts with OxyClean to get my stink out. Perhaps that is TMI. But it definitely means that biking season - spring, the time of much energy and the time of the Zodiac sign of Aries - is upon us!

As I kick off spring, I'm celebrating a most thoughtful and funny gift from my brother-in-law, who knows I love Mojos and that the Mountain Mix can no longer be found in MN. This frees me up a bit from having to maintain my recent level of hoarding.

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

A joyful 180

On Saturday, I was riding with toe warmers in my boots. This afternoon? Shorts! Bare hands! No jacket! No hat!

There still is a lot of crud on the roads, so I took my fat tire wheels off my one bike, and put mountain bike wheels and a rack on it for commuting to work today.

The streets were filled with cyclists and, although I am out of shape, I can tell that the bit I rode this winter was helpful for transitioning into this spring riding. I hope the weather holds for the long haul (like, say, 35 years), but I left my fat tire wheels out, in easy reach, just in case.

Here's a video someone took during the fat bike Birkie we did last weekend. It didn't do a good enough job of showing the hills, but you get the general idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Dme8Fml-Q

On a side note, I'm making progress, but have a long way to go, still, toward reaching my fundraising goal. Maybe the weather will help with that, too!
http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/MS150Maggie2015

Winter in Wisconsin

Today, Dan, Tony, Angie, and I (in order of finish) rode in the fat tire Birkie: a fat tire race in the snow on the Birkebeiner ski trail near Hayward, Wisconsin. We did the 20k route, versus the 47k.

I learned some things, such as:

- I should have had oatmeal as planned, instead of what offered insufficient calories to make it to the 8k water station in strong, non-wobbly fashion.
- The trail is very hilly. I will never, ever, EVER! cross country ski on it.
- Airbnb has some nice offerings.
- Cable is a cute little town, with a good bookstore that gave me a free book by my new favorite author!
- The Angry Minnow brewpub (as opposed to my local Angry Catfish bike shop) has really good food.
- The Moccasin Bar has really weird dioramas of taxadermied animals.
- I am really out of shape.
- Wiping out on your bike in the snow is kind of funny the first time, but not the second time.

It was a good way to end the winter, but now I'm ready to pull out my road bike.

(I wish I had photos of the race. It was pretty amazing to see hundreds of fat bikes out in nature.)

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Metric or standard? (Not for the children)

After buying a new fat bike tire to pair up with a spare we had at home, I exchanged emails with the owner of the Angry Catfish bike shop about the shop's donation for our trivia night. I mentioned that I hoped the tire would provide more traction than my current tires, to which he responded, "that tire has a shit ton of traction." 

I explained to my coworkers that I didn't think of traction when I thought of shit. Desmond astutely asked whether shop owner meant a metric ton or a standard ton.

Interestingly, this is what I learned: 

• A standard ton is also called a short ton. This is the ton that those of us in the U.S. have always heard about - usually in the context of elephants or whales. The standard or short ton is 2,000 pounds. 
• In the U.K., a "ton" usually means a long ton. It is 2,240 pounds. It is also referred to as an Imperial ton.
• Alternatively, in the U.K., something might be a "tonne" - - a metric ton. It is 2,240.62262 pounds. This is the term, and poundage, usually used in Canada. (I'm not sure why there couldn't be some way to consolidate the two, non-short tons to simplify matters and/or deal with the 0.62262 extra pound.)

The lesson learned, I guess is that if someone offers you a "shit ton" of something good, you'd want to clarify that it is either a long/Imperial ton or a tonne/metric ton, to get an extra 240 or 240.62262 pounds of it. If you're in a "shit ton" of trouble, you'd want to clarify that you're using a standard/short ton.

I leave it to you as to which ton you use to categorize this post.

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Battle of the Hamstrings Versus the Quads

This weekend was glorious and relaxing: I did nothing on Friday night, I swam on Saturday and got some of the trivia donations from Stacy, Dan and I met fellow MS rider Dave and his wife Ellen for dinner on Saturday night, and then I went for an early morning bike ride today, then an Operation Om yoga (one of our trivia donors) class, followed by a fruitful - literally, I guess - excursion to Costco with member Stacy, and then a trip to 'Sconnie with Dan to Dave's Brewfarm (a wind powered farm/brewery).

I took these pictures on the trail, while riding home when the sun was making its debut. The one I took while standing makes me look tall and powerful. The one I took while riding is a nice action shot, but the leaves and sticks made it harder to see my shadow.

The 20k ride in Wisconsin is just 6 days away. Hopefully I can figure out my pants layers by then so that I can move my legs nicely and not have hot quads - like today - and yet somehow prevent repeating today's blocks-of-ice hamstring scenario.

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