Off season training: amassing kilometers the hard way.

It started on a brevet. Chris N. (from PA) and I discovered that we both have trained on  Concept2 indoor rowing machines or "ergs" as the rowers call them. Chris used his over the winter to cross train. I have had one for over a decade, but since I started Randonneuring it's been off in the corner of "the man room" surrounded by bikes and bike parts - unused.

Chris mentioned the indoor rowing and I replied with my story about competing in the 2010 CRASH B World Indoor Rowing Championships. This may need some explanation. Indoor rowing is a sport. It may be the niche-iest of sports since it involves competing in a rowing distance event on a device that actually doesn't travel an inch or ever touch water; nevertheless, it is a hotly contested sport that has at its core the requirement that all of its athletes inflict intense anaerobic suffering upon themselves. So it that sense, it's kinda like bike racing.  

First Friday Writing for Randos: PBP 2007 by Jeff Tilden

{First Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This month it's an excerpt from Jeff Tilden's account of his PBP Ride in 2007* . . .

I love the swoosh and the sway and the zoom of bicycling. I love to fly, to corner, to tilt like a gyroscope. It’s primitive and it’s simple and it’s elegant and it’s graceful and it’s powerful. The abject skilllessness of bicycling is its greatest virtue. It requires nothing. A four-year old can master it. A little balance, not much, far less than, say, being a spider. We know this as children, but we forget. We already have everything we need. The PBP is not the NFL. It is, instead, an incandescent union of form and function. Of past and present. Uniting us not with our grandparents as much as some animal 400 million years ago. Bicycling is primordial. We come from an unbroken line of winners, stretching back to the first day we crawled up out of the mud. Every one of our ancestors, all the way back, kept going long enough to beat predators, disease, starvation. Long enough to have a child. With really only the skill it takes to ride a bike. Like the rest of my species, I hale from Africa, and I was born to run through the woods. Or bike, if the woods are paved. A brevet is a race, after all. The human race.

 . . . We reek, but are unaware of it, like fish that don’t know they are wet.  We have been marinated in our own sweat.  Paul saw a café on the way into Fougeres 370 miles ago and has had his mind’s eye on it for two days.  He leads us there and we sit down to an outdoor picnic table feast of sausage crepes, heavy on the mustard, and frittes, heavy on the ketchup.  As we finish, Paul launches into what may be the second greatest pep talk ever.  I cannot do it justice, but the gist was . . .

Why I sometimes feel clueless: A true story.

My wife and I had a conversation last night which shows why I sometimes feel clueless. You may find it helpful when talking across the gender gap. Or not. Either way, there are a couple of things you need to know before you read this. 

First, our next door neighbor Mrs. H. recently moved into a condo type of place after living next to us for over 10 years. 

Second when you read this, the lines in "quotes" are what my wife said and the lines in (parentheses) are what I thought after she said it. Okay, here we go:

Winter Solstice Ride

 

I don't know if any words can capture the full magic of our Winter Solstice Ride but Patrick (Dancer) said it well:

bade farewell to autumn and welcomed the first day of winter with a small handful of hardy randos on the inaugural Winter Solstice 200k, the all-night ride complete with bikes festooned with string lights, tinsel, reindeer antlers and Santa hats, the dark night punctuated with Christmas carols, bad jokes and oohs and aahs at the festively decorated houses along the route. Good friends, good times: a wonderful way as any to spend the longest night of the year.

Audaxing through the snow

The New Jersey Randonneurs held their annual holiday gathering on Sunday. In true Rando style, it centered around riding a 112K permanent - the Great Adventure.  Joe "K-Hound" arranged it all including the meals and refreshment. We'd meet for breakfast, ride the route and then eat again. 

Coffeeneuring - final day: Create Wonder * Share Joy

The long ago fallen brown leaves crunch and crackle under our wheels. We pedal on a path of broken pavement, gravel and rocks that borders Pennypack Creek, a thin ribbon of wild, threading through the north suburbs, protected by signs defining conduct.

• Catch and release only. 
• No hunting. 
• Stay on trail.

We stay on trail and ride the line of least resistance on this unknown path. Over the river and through the woods, to coffeenneur we go.

Coffeeneuring day six: Mint tea and Irish Potato at the Keswick

The Keswick Theater provides live performances for the NPR listening kind of customer. Live music - folk, rock, acoustic, electric - live comedy, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, to keep the middle aged suburban sorta-kinda-hipster feeling relevant and "with it." 

Almost next door is the Keswick Coffee House. Selections of flavored lattes served in paper cups, teas, ice cream, Kosher Hot Dogs and couches. 

The laptop user in the window seat has his book on theological writing propped open so the title is easily read by us non-theological writing non -window seat customers.