first cold(ish) ride

NYC was the first time I had been on my Raleigh since April or May. I realized how much I had missed riding it. Today I got off work early so I came home and went for a ride. Did about 12 miles. It was a great evening for a ride and once I got warmed up the only thing that was cold was ears and feet. There is a night ride tonight but I won't have many days that are this warm for a while, nor daylight. Glad to get in 40 mins of riding.

Streets of NYC/ Fall training

Saturday Sal and I went to NYC for the day. We take our bikes up and ride around Manhattan. This is the 3rd or 4th time we have done this (my sixth or seventh) and its always fun. The bike lanes are getting better but the foot traffic and vehicles (not to mention dudes pushing carts, COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS girls texting as they walk, and "bike salmons" make for, for me, fun riding. In fact, Sally who doesn't have much of a wild streak, enjoys it too. Just keep you head on straight and alert and its a lot of fun.
We ate lots of goood food and had fun checking out some stores and speciality food markets.


One of the highlight was checking out a boutique hat shop, Victor Osbourne. They had some good hats, but the greatest of all I bought for Sally (not pictured).




Then yesterday we went to the farm and I ran about 4.5 miles. This was the first run of my fall (almost winter) season.
Today my legs are super sore but i wanted to keep the train rolling so i went and did 20 minutes on the elliptical at work. I rub i high friction setting so it was really tuff. i will work up to 30 mins in a few weeks.

Dead City Alleycat/ Dead the next day

Saturday I went to Washington and participated in the Dead City Alleycat. It ended up starting about 5:15pm and was perfect temp once we got moving. There was a Rally to Restore Sanity with John Stewart in DC and with Saturday also being THE party night for Halloween it was crazy busy for a Saturday night. I rode the Fixed gear (3 speed) james frame and it did well except the back wheel got knocked out of alignment from a large pot hole. i kept up with the top five until the 4th check point and they pulled enough of a lead that i lost them on one of the harder to find checkpoints. I lost a bunch of time at that (the apple bob). Luckily i had my map and had prelocated all the other points. I finished the race next to last but won Best Out of Towner. The prizes were CRAZY!!.. I won a pair of shimano road pedals, grips and matching bar plugs, a great pair of knickers, and $50 gift cert to Seagull Bags (i'm getting a cool custom fanny pack). after he was done handing prizes out he said for anyone who finished the race to come up and grab more stuff. I got a cool long sleave event shirt another t-shirt, and an AWESOME OUTLIER merino t shirt!. love their stuff.
after i watched some gold sprints which is two guys racing on rollers in a 100 yard computer dash record was 23 seconds and the winner won by .002 secs (they were supposedly averaging 48 mph) and went home.

Yesterday i went for a group ride. almost 40 miles. i got about 25 miles and my stomach started growling. At about 30 miles I blew the FUCK up. legs were fried and no more energy. I ate some choclate gu (thanks charlie) and i think that got me back but i was going about 13 mph with the wind on my back. thanks to bobby and laura kennedy for the food at the baseball park. it was tied for, if not the worst, i have ever crashed and so hard to finish.