Short ride, Morning ride...

Thursday morning I checked the forecast and the Friday/Saturday forecasts had rain, and I felt like getting out, so I hopped on my bike early and was out the door around 7:15/7:30am.

I "only" did 34km, but it was fun, and interesting to see how it felt compared to the 74km I did last week. I also found a really nasty hill, which I'll have to ride again sometime, as it's good training, no doubt.

And again I realized that I should bring a camera so that I can snap some pix and make these blog posts a lot more interesting.

I wasn't happy with my bike seat, and so just to try it out I "stole" the padded + sprung seat from my wife's bike a few weeks back. So far I'm liking it quite a bit. It bounces a bit, which I think helps hide the fact that my bike has no suspension. And that 34km ride felt pretty good on my backside compared to when I did such a ride last fall.

The other discovery I made, which is kind of obvious in hindsight, was how much you can accomplish if you just get out there a bit early. 7:15 isn't even that early to get on the road. I was home just after 9:30am, had a 2hr ride behind me, 34km done, and the day was still wide open ahead of me!

ttfn
...art

Milestone: 70+km

Hey folks,

Today I went on a group ride with 3 other cyclists from here in London. It was a pretty good mix -- one guy was definitely a faster cyclist, one was self-admittedly slower, and two others sort of in the middle.

Total distance was about 72km, which is longer than I've ever gone before. Much to my surprise, my hands and my rear feel no worse than when I've done a 30-40km ride. (and my back and everything else is fine.)

Our average was only 18.9 kph, but that is okay. Today was more about being able to go the distance, than about how fast we did. Max for today was 51.8 kph, which was faster than I've ever clocked myself, quite fun!

I really must endorse the idea of group training rides, and I encourage everyone out there to do so. It makes the distance pass quicker, and the breaks are more enjoyable. Definitely the way to go. In miniature, we were thinking that this was also somewhat what things will be like on the actual tour this summer.

Blessings!
...art

Snappy Comebacks...

This past week there has been a lively discussion on the cyclist forum about "Why A Bike Ride". Discussing sort of the meta- question as to why are we going on a bike ride, and how does that help, and why not just raise some money and so on.

There was a lot of good and heartfelt discussion about how to address people when they ask that very valid question.

This post is not about that.

No, this post is about the very nice snappy comeback that my friend passed along to me today. I wonder if I'd have the nerve to use this, when next I get asked this question.

It goes something like this: "Look: I could go on umpteen different vacations this summer, and spend about the same amount of money (or more, even) that I'm spending on my bike and gear and so on... and it wouldn't make a lick of difference to anyone in the world."

Okay, maybe I do need to get a bit serious. Sure, all the cyclists are raising a bunch of money each as part of this bike tour. But the critic would suggest that we could still donate more, if we didn't spend all this other money on our bikes and gear, and the tour itself. So wouldn't that make more sense?

We say no, because Raising Awareness, is also very important. Some have argued that it is even more important. We've already seen cyclists being profiled in the media, which is having a wider impact. And when the tour itself goes on, you can bet that we're going to see lots of local media checking out what the heck all these cyclists are doing. And that, again, will have a wider ranging public impact.

I believe that doing the bike tour, is going to have a lot more impact than if we had all just gone out quietly and donated $4000 (or $10,000 for the full-distance cyclists) to charity.