Racing the Cars

Day 41 - 4/16/09

Doing quick rides are nice, but I am starting to realize that in order to feel like I have done any major riding I need to be gone for at least 3 hours. But with my schedule I only can do so much at a time, so today I did a 50 min ride to the JP ponds focusing on speed. I actually got to race some cars along a stretch of the ride. The bike path heading south on the east side of the pond runs right along the road. I wanted to see what kind of speed I had so I started racing cars. Some would hit the gas and blow by me no problem but there were a couple of cars that I was able to keep up with. I bet I hit 25 miles per hour as some point. It was fantastic and exhilarating. I can’t wait to have a camera strapped to my bike so I can take you all along for the ride.

(Picture is of the rough draft for my trip)

BIKE TRACK: Chemical Brothers (Come With Us)

BEST BUDDIES CHALLENGE:
$410.00 or $2750.00
DONATE HERE

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 7.57 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 50 min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 66 hrs 30 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 490.14 Miles

Riding With Friends

Day 30 – 3/23/09

My play, “Dark Play or Stories for Boys” Ended on a very good note. Through the entire 5-week run the thing that amazed me the most was the different types of people that would come to the shows every week. We had college students, high school students, longtime theatergoers, and first time theatergoers. It was really nice being able to talk to all of them and see all there different responses to the same play. Riding on my bike to the last show I road along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. It was a nice ride. I was able to watch the city of Boston go by as I passed through Charlestown and into Chelsea. It was overall a great ride except for the huge potholes on the back roads once I was in Chelsea. They swallowed my bike, but I survived to tell the story.
After the show I road to the cast party in Watertown. I wont say much but lets just say I am glad I have gotten good at climbing hills.

On Monday I was able to go on a ride with my friend Thomas Patrick Dunn (yes he’s Irish). It was great. I fallowed his lead south of Jamaica Plain. I learned a lot about the area. Such things as…There are so many flipping hills! Something that I did notice was that I was doing pretty well on hills but when it came to flats Tom would kick my ass. I was very interested in why he was going so much faster than me on flats? I had the road bike, I have been training my ass off, Whats Up? I was looking at his gears and he continually stays on the highest set of gears. So I thought maybe because he bikes so much on that high gear it builds up his muscles in such a way that he can go fast on flat ground. I asked him about it and he said that he is always trying to get from one place to another really fast. And most of the places he tries to go are not that far away and not really up a hill. So I think that that is what it was. His muscles have adapted to short sprints where I am training my body to go long distances at a constant speed. (Oh the cool things that our bodies do.)

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 36.62 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 4hr 15min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 38 hrs 55 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 287.64 Miles

Ice-cream VS. Pie

Day 6 – 2/1/09

On each of my adventures I want to run into and find new and different people and places. I think part of my training is not just getting into shape but also exploring the city and towns around me. And boy did I find a new place today. My adventure today started off fairly simple.  I was going to go bike to the JP licks in Newton (I know JP licks again….but hey it’s a nice way to choose a destination) It was around 4 miles away so it was going to be a simple ride.  I headed down beacon street and when I got the intersection where Cleveland circle is, I came upon a group of 5 “bikers”.  They were the athletic bikers that have the cool helmets and shirts that have pockets on their lower back.  I felt as though this would be a great time to observe how “real” bikers bike.  They moved as a group pedaling at the same speed looking as though they’re not exerting any energy. They were almost dancing with each other, moving in and out of formation, waving each other to the side to avoid ice and bumps. They were connected with each other creating a new entity that was not just the individual bikers but one vehicle. I fallowed them the best I could…(from afar). I really wanted to know what this image looked like to a passer by, 5 stellar looking bikers and one biker on a mountain bike with a scarf wrapped around his face and enough layers of clothing to appear as though he was 250 pounds trailing behind. I felt like the nerd fallowing the cool kids around school hoping that the essence of cool would blow off of them and on me.  This fantasy only lasted as long as the road was flat. Once a hill came, the cool kids were gone. They were so far ahead of me I didn’t even get to say goodbye.  Once I got over the biker shun, I focused on the freaking hill that I was huffing and puffing up.  I made it to the top and before long I was jetting down the other side having a blast, always knowing that what I go down I must come back up (I’ll deal with that when I come to it).   At the bottom of the hill was where JP licks was supposed to be…I could not find it.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a sign.  Not just a Sign…THE sign…THE sign of Signs.  The café was called “PIE” …My breaks where hit and the wheels of my bike were flipped and I was in the store, sitting in front of all sorts of pies in seconds.  This place was great and my stomach knew it.  There were your regular fruit pies, apple, cherry, rhubarb, but then there were allsorts of sweet and savory pies and I wanted them all.  I ended up settling for an eggplant, mozzarella, and tomato “hand pie”  it hit the spot and it gave me enough energy to make it back over that hill.  After finishing my scrumptious snack I headed back on my adventure towards my home.  About halfway up the hill I stopped and took a picture of Mary Baker Eddy’s home (not sure who she is but will find out and will go back to that house because it was beautiful).  After getting over the hill and back into charted territory I was overwhelmed with joy of completing my bike clime.  I was just very proud of my self for learning about other bikers and exploring new places and wanted to take on the next challenge that lay in my path. 

            There was no ice-cream this time around but there was pie. And I think that is worth an equal standing.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 7.8 miles

TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 50 min

 

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 4 hrs 15 min

TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 31.97 Miles

The World Keeps on Turning

Day 3 – 1/26/09

Today my adventures were clouded with death and dead ends.  After taking a day off from biking (not my choice, I didn’t get a chance to step into my apartment all day) I decided that a nice trip to take would be to go to JP licks (the Original).  Some ice cream after biking in the 20 degree weather sounds like a great idea, right? Yes it did! So I got on my bike and hit the roads. The timing was going to be perfect.  I would get to the JP ponds and see the sunset and then I would be able to swing by “Bikes Not Bombs” to get more pricing on the things that I will need to invest in shortly, and then get some ice-cream and be back in time to take a shower and get to rehearsal for “Dark Play or Stories for Boys”.  It was going to be great.  Once I got on to Washington street to get to Brookline village I saw a line of people in black coats and solemn faces standing outside of a large white building which so happened to be a funeral home. The moment I saw those people I knew that this was going to be a theme for the trip.  Every corner I turned, every face that I looked at I was expecting grief and sadness (not the best thing to think about).  I got to the Ponds and boy was it beautiful. The reflection of light off the frozen snow covered pond was strait out of  The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. It was so beautiful that I decided to bike around the entire pond before heading further on the adventure.  Although I was completely struck by the beauty of the sunset I was still thinking of a sunset being the END of the day, the END of the Light, The DEATH of the Sun. Pretty morbid I know but since only a couple of minuets before I had seen a building that had a dead body in it…I think it is justified….at least a little bit. After taking my loop around the ponds and passing the same people multiple times, I trekked on.  When I pulled up to “Bikes Not Bombs” I took some photos of the place (which I must say, Not as sketchy as I originally thought, but still up there on the scale) I walked my bike to the door and the lights were off…the freaken store was closed!!!! Well of course it was, it’s the ride of Death.  After wallowing in the wreckage of my plans (yes I am being overly dramatic, but isn’t the wallowing a good word) I thought that my one saving grace would be JP Licks.  I took my three dollars and set out to get some ice cream, because sugar always heals the wounds. I walk in to the store and to my amazement I could not afford a freaking kiddy cup of ice cream!! It cost $3.14 for a scoop of Ice cream (COME ON, CAN I GET A BREAK!!!!) so I did what any good consumer would do…I bought a double chocolate muffin and ate the crap out of that (drowning my sorrow of no ice cream with chocolate).  The Chocolate Muffin was satisfying and I jumped back on my bike and started riding back home.  Riding along the ponds, through Brookline village, past the funeral home (which still had a line of people at its door) and back to my apartment, on this last stretch of my adventure I started to think about how cyclical things are.  Life than Death, Day than night, Open than Closed,  my tires are spinning in circles, my trips start and finish at my home, and this made me feel good. Good to know that things seem to come around.  Life just keeps on going and I just keep hope that there will be ice cream along the way.

Pictures will be coming soon.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 7.6 miles

TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 1hr 10 min

 

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 2.5 hrs

TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 16.2 miles

You got to get lost before you find the "Bomb"

Day 2 – 1/24/09

I totally got lost today and it was FREAKING COLD!!!  I decided at around 4 pm to take my adventures to this bike shop in Jamaica Plain called “Bikes not Bombs” (pretty amazing name right?!?, 18 Bartlett Square, Boston, MA 02130)  I needed a helmet and some more information.  So I printed out my directions from Google maps (walking directions) and went on my way. I left at about 4:30pm and I really wanted to beat the sun setting (RIIIIGHT MARK).  I road south on Harvard St towards Brookline Village and then went down S. Huntington Ave.  This was not the best biking rout but it was much better than that dastardly Beacon street.  I got on to centre street in JP, which takes you through the center of the town. (I saw the original J.P. Licks and really wanted to stop by and get some Ice cream because it is the best in the world, but I was on a mission.) JP Licks must have distracted me because I blew right past Greene st. and kept going down Centre till I came to a Highway and felt as though I should turn around.  Once I got back to where JP licks was I pulled into a store called “Gadgets”( 671 Centre Street) I met a wonderful person whom I presume is the owner (I want to call her Sherrill so I will) I met Sherrill a lovely short woman with great thick black rimed glasses that made her look like a owl and a great smile that makes you feel warm inside, and she pointed me in the right direction (across the street!!!) so I said thank you and left to get back on my icy journey.  I don’t want to say that pulling into Bikes Not Bombs was sketchy….but…well when you are hidden in an alley, behind a tall broken down warehouse with a hand written sign, I would have to say that falls under the sketchy category. Once I stepped into the shop it felt as though I was thrust into the world of the Biker.  There were all sorts of refurbished bikes mounted on the walls and the floor was made of wood planks that seemed to have the dirt of thousands of bikes rubbed into it, there must be so many stories that have been told in this place.  Behind two bikes suspended from mechanic stands comes the voices of two Bikers. /////I would like to take a moment to describe that to me, the description of a “biker” falls into two categories, 1. The purely athletic toned bikers that do triathlons and crazy things like that (think Armstrong) and 2.  The punk underground biker that rides single speed bikes that have been put together through dumpster diving for parts.  They have short hair and often a piercing or two and for some reason there is a handkerchief hanging out of their back pockets.///// The two at “Bikes Not Bombs” were of the latter type of bikers and I felt kind of like an outsider because I am wearing four layers of sweatshirts and riding a schwinn female intended bike (total outsider, right?)….but as I started to unravel my story I felt more and more at home.  I asked some questions about locks and Helmets, lights, and tour bikes (still looking for one if you got one)  and then talked about classes that they offer for people like me that need to learn allot about their bike and want to do it ASAP.  Not much info was gathered but I signed up for their mailing list and will post that when I get it.  I left that little paradise of a bike shop with a brand new helmet and some lights ($35-Helmet $25- Lights + $3-tax = $63.00) for my trip back to my apartment IN THE DARK!!! I was given directions to take the Jamaica Bike path back to Brookline village and did. It was amazing and I will be going back to take pictures of the pond and ride the hills in which I flew down. In total I was gone from 4:30pm to 6:30pm and probably spent about an hour riding. My fingers did freeze but I will survive to ride again!!!!

 

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 6 miles

TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 1 hr

 

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 1.3 hrs

TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 8.6 miles