I am going to be blunt and just come out and say that I did not ride in the Tour de Bronx this year. Awww, I know, I know, I feel really bad, but I had to work the night before and I didn’t get to sleep until about five thirty or six and I snoozed for only about an hour or two, woke to the alarm, then realised that I wasn’t going anywhere after working the bar all night. Admittedly, two years ago I did the ride on one hour sleep and hungover, but that’s when I was working an office job. I had all the sedentary time I needed to be able to pull off a stunt like that. Not now though. I must use my incredible powers to entertain drinkers in downtown Manhattan. And the really funny thing is I have realised that I am able to work the way I do because I bike!! If I wasn’t as physically active as I am with the bike, I’d never have the energy to work late hours the way I do. So in essence, the biking has one more benefit for me: endless energy…

Yet even my amazing love for riding still hasn’t been able to keep me on the bike as much as before for the past three weeks. After the last fall, I got spooked as I usually do, but this time around, it got to me a little deeper. I don’t know, but I have stepped back and just taken easier. You’d think that as many daredevil falls as I have taken, I’d be used to them by now. And maybe I am, but skinning my elbow and knee on a lonely stretch of slick road in the middle of the night kind of freaked me out. Which also in turn has brought more of the Ghost Bikes more to my attention. I have even stopped to read the plaques that are mounted over them and read the name of the victim, the date they died and what vehicle they were hit by. Most of the ones I have read were fatalities by trucks. And lord knows I know how trucks operate…just like every other driver: they don’t pay attention. And being a truck, please!! The driver can pretty much do whatever he wants because the truck head to head with another vehicle is going to win. So that is a guaranteed death sentence for us cyclists.

I can say this: I have learned that never, ever AGAIN will I be riding on the right side of any vehicle on the road. Too much lately have I been pushed into parked cars by drivers making right turns and not looking in the mirror to make sure they can safely turn. Hell, I have been cut off on the left side by drivers too, but some catch you in their view and hit the brakes before shoving you off to the left while they complete their turns. But I find that it is safer to ride on the left, right next to the driver in their windows.

And no more daredeviling. I know, I have the compulsion to race other riders and do all kinds of adrenaline pumping feats in traffic, but I think I’m going to take it easier. I just cannot afford to get seriously hurt and I certainly don’t want to end up being remembered by another ghost bike in the city. Dare I say that I am becoming a more (GASP) casual street rider?!?!

My plans for racing have not changed. And in fact, I am even more on track for racing as I have now curbed my need for speed through the grid. I have to save that energy for the trainer and for the races.

And on the issue of safety, here is a device I have mentioned before that I think is a solid weapon against foot and car traffic…

Ah yes, the air horn. I found this on Amazon, and it’s not expensive at all!! Ah, I can’t wait to use this on the pedestrians on the Brooklyn Bridge. Is it devilish of me to want to see those mindless tourists literally jump at the sound of a blaring horn behind them? Maybe then they’ll learn…. I have heard this horn sounded once before, and I’m sure that cars would be able to acknowledge you if you rang it. Especially now that cars are forbidden to honk unnecessarily. I really think that this horn is a good thing for us in the never ending battle on the road.

Ride safe out there….

Is it any wonder my bottom is sore or outright numb with streets like this? Really, here in NYC there are still cobblestoned streets, but only in lower Manhattan on the West Side and Soho and also some parts of Brooklyn by the waterfront near the old Navy docks by Red Hook. I won’t even talk about the old trolley tracks that are still embedded in the stones in Brooklyn which are evil traps that catch road tires and make you fall in front of moving cars… Uhh…maybe that’s just me. But anyway, my point being that it’s hard sometimes to get to these areas without having to roll over these stones and I feel the right seat could do the bottom good. So here is another seat that I have found, have a look:

This baby I found on the Trek site. Have a look around, it’s pretty cool. I may not be a fan of the bikes, but the gear is alright. This seat specifically is a Bontrager Race Lite Saddle, unisex from what I can see.

I don’t know why, but I prefer gear for men more than I do for women. I find that the fit of men’s gear suits me (as I am a whopping five feet eleven) but even more than that, I find that these companies sort of “coddle” women. It’s like this sexist sort of culture that makes all these “pretty” bright colors for women’s clothing, despite the fact that riding causes you to get covered in dirt and grease, thus ruining the pretty, pretty colors. The bikes are fashioned for “easy riding” and I swear if you go through catalogues, hey make the bikes different for “women’s bodies”!! Really?!?! Last I checked, we were of the human variety. It’s like the boy’s club and we’re not allowed. They say that we are smaller–I’m taller than the average man. We need different seats–that may be true, but I prefer the men’s seat because I don’t need extra cushioning on my butt. When I’m tearing down a hill I want to same advantage as the men do and I don’t need to be dragging a granny seat underneath me. They say that the handlebars need to be some kind of weird positioning for our smaller hands and smaller frames. It’s like they are trying to convince us that we are smaller and more inferior. Is it any wonder that there is no women’s Tour de France? However, there is an equivalent of the Tour, which is called the Grande Boucle which you can learn more about in this Wikipedia article.

However, I’m getting off subject. This is a topic that I certainly will get back to.

So anyway, once again I will leave you with a moment of zen:

I guess I’m obsessed now about finding the right cyclocross for training. I keep on the lookout for all kinds of bikes, familiar and new and while waiting for some maintenance on my bike this week, I sat in the store reading a magazine and came across this line of bike. I had never heard of them, but the picture impressed me so much I had to of course share it. If you’d like to check out the stats or view any of their other styles, check out the site, Redline Bicycles. You know, there are so many choices out there that I feel confident I will find a dope ride!!

On another note, I had a friend this week try to ride back to his house at night drunk. He fell. I still can’t get a straight story out of him, but he says that he remembers swiping mirrors of parked cars then falling. No matter what the story, he has a huge road rash on his right shoulder, swollen and scraped elbow, also right side, and of course his right wrist, which he says e couldn’t move. HE couldn’t move his elbow at all. When came morning, he had a big red mark on his forehead, which he swears that would have been worse had he not been wearing a helmet. Now how many stories to I have to ell in order to get riders all to see that these things happen? You don’t even have to be hit by an actual car to fall and hit your head and get hurt. And in fact, he has to go get a new helmet because he says it’s cracked on the inside.

And riding drunk? Just don’t do it. I learned my lesson last summer about trying to ride dunk. It took a deep tissue bruise on my right side, just above the pelvis (thank Jesus it wasn’t the pelvis), and a twelve hour stint in the ER to teach me. There is just no excuse for riding drunk now. Most bikes have quick release tires which you can pull off and fit into a cab–especially if you are like me and go NOWHERE without your baby–or at the very least, chain it good to scaffolding (my favorite) and come back in the morning to get it. Trust me, it’s worth it to get your ride hungover in one piece than risk riding at night and getting banged up…or worse, dead.

You know, I miss the old segment of The Daily Show at the nd in which Craig Kilbourne would say< "...and here's your moment of zen..."

...and here's your moment of zen...

While waiting for my bike to bike to be serviced the other day, I had some time to walk around the bike shop and browse. I cam across the tools and picked this one out. I just quickly looked at the container, decided that I needed to replace my broken Allen key tool, propped it up on the counter with some Alcis cream and ran off to work. Then I had some time at work to pull it out and look at the instructions and boy was I surprised!! This instrument has 16 different tools on it. Of course there are the Allen keys, one of which is a 5mm Allen Key that has an 8mm head that slides up and down, thus giving you two tools on the one key. There are also spoke wrenches, which I imagine one day I will learn what they are for, especially in an emergency situation. The black plastic sides pop out to become tire levers!! Sweet!! But the super awesomest thing about it is the chain tool. It installs or removes chain pins and loosens stiff links. Also has a chain hook. Double sweet!!

And double good that I have this tool because I learned that day that you cannot change the chain without having to replace the entire cassette as well. The chain and cassettes fit perfectly together as they wear on each other over time. Putting a new chain on an old cassette wouldn’t quite work. I did not really know that. But now I’m glad I do. I have been thinking about changing my cassette anyway, especially getting a gear that gives me more resistance on downhills. Now I have to figure out whether to get road gearing or mountain gearing. OH!! The agony of cyclocross!!

Well anyway, going through the website for Topeak (as I always do for anything I buy for my bike), I came across this glorious thing of beauty that must have been made by god him/herself:

Oh god, just looking at it brings a tear to my eye…. This bad boy, the Bikamper, uses a 26” mountain or 700c road front wheel in place of tent poles. This is a one person sleeper (kind of a bummer), three season and packs down compact enough to strap to the handlebars. How freakin’ cool is that?!?!

Also, I hate to report my poor bike seat is starting to die. I have already started looking for some new ones–again, the mountain or road gear dilemma–and going through said Topeak site, came across the link for another one of their companies called Allay which makes saddles. I was looking at this one as a possible candidate:

We’ll see what happens…

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I admit it. After swearing off the Brooklyn Bridge in a previous post, ranting about the ever annoying tourists clogging up the bike path and vowing to only take the Manhattan Bridge, I pussed out. I have started taking the Brooklyn Bridge again. Don’t give me that look. It’s just that the Manhattan Bridge is so desolate and really scary at night. I know, I’m girling out right now, but I can’t help it. The Manhattan Bridge is creepy, and I can’t ride it all the time. Now I guess I have to learn how to do that kick that cyclists do to get pedestrians out of the way… Eh. I’m not that mean. I’ll stick to yelling at them…

Also, I have now started hanging out with a friend in Queens and have widened my riding circle. Long Island City and Astoria have now felt the burning of my tires on their streets. I have ridden in Queens before of course, but not regularly. I totally dig Long Island City for the long stretches of nearly deserted roads (especially down by the waterfront) in which you can ride without the constant starting and stopping, especially with the cleats. The streets aren’t that bad and you can really get in a good amount of mileage. Astoria is nice, clean and quiet, with more residential streets, but they seem even less crowded than Brooklyn. You can tear down the roads at whatever pace you choose, provided that you know how to get around Queens. No, really, Queens streets are totally confusing. I understand how the addresses work, but not how the grid works…when there is an actual grid. Most of the time the streets run like London streets–they start and stop and continue at their own will!!

Anyway, getting out to Long Island City from Brooklyn is a pretty cool ride. There is the 59th Street Bridge which goes straight into LIC, but I prefer to go through Williamsburg, heading straight down Bedford Avenue to its end where it crosses Manhattan Avenue, making a right and going down until hitting the Pulaski Bridge. The Pulaski Bridge is a little bridge that takes you over the water that cuts Brooklyn and Queens on the northern edge of the island. It’s a nice climb then descent, and when ou get to the Queens side, you are smack on the edge of Queens Plaza. You know by the Citibank building right there. I can see that building from my place here in Brooklyn. To look at it from my place is a real sight–I can see how long I ride to get out there!!

The 59th Street Bridge is a kind of cool ride. There are people on it–even this bridge has more people on it than the Manhattan Bridge…creepy…–and the incline is very weird. Going from Queens to Manhattan, the grade is long and gradual, then drops quickly almost all the way over to the Manhattan side. Thus, in turn, when going from Manhattan to Queens, you have this sharp hill going up, then the rest of the ride is the easy, long downhill. There is this weird part of the bike path in which you could literally go into the traffic, which also kind of creeps me out, but I suppose it’s for emergency access. I just wish they would somehow cordon it off so that may be kids can’t just turn their bikes or scooters into traffic. Anyway, once you get from Queens to Manhattan you are, of all places, 59th Street!! East Side, and when you get to the end of the bike path, it makes a totally sharp turn, in which if you don’t know it’s there and are tearing down the hill, you could get hurt. So be careful over there.

I plan on doing some more distance riding, as I have learned this year that I prefer the endurance rather than the sprint…although I can sprint pretty damn good. I am working my way, albeit slowly, to be able to a century, then I think I’m seriously considering entering cyclocross races. Yes!! I realise what I have to do is to start out doing more and more endurance, all the while working on my sprinting (easy in the streets of New York), and then uphills (AAAARRRGGGHHH), finally working on my offroading. I look forward to getting any new gear I might need for that…..

So as I just stated in my previous post, I lost the Lake cleats I had for my pedals. I left them in a cab of all places–a CAB!!! Drunk!! Now I am all about riding, but I am also advocating that if you can’t put the booze down, then certainly get your drunk ass in a cab. Just don’t be as stupid as me and leave a dope pair of cleats in the backseat…

Anyway, I went to my local bike store and got some new cleats. Boy what an experience that was. I don’t remember if I had mentioned that I am not really a big fan of my local bike store, R&A Cycles, but I didn’t have time to go all the way down to my favorite bike store in Bay Ridge and then get all the way back up here and beyond to Manhattan to get to work. So to R&A I went.

First off, what really gets me is the fact that they do not acknowledge you when you walk in. And then when they do, they ask you what you need and every time someone stated they wanted to buy a new bike, the salesman asked how much they were willing to spend. I guess that’s a valid question, but somehow they way they asked and how they asked kind of got under my skin. It was like if you didn’t say high enough, you were at the bottom of the waiting list.

So the salesman I got was this guy that had been working there for years and he was one of the reasons I don’t like this store. So when he came to help me I was like, “Damn!!” So then he proceeds to talk and talk and talk away, mostly about himself and how good he used to ride and I had on my “I’m not interested” face and so he brought over some other guy that needed help and had him wait near us so he could keep running his mouth to someone. So he fitted me for the shoes, put the cleats on (for an extra charge) and then what really got me was when he asked me, “Are you willing to spend more money?” And I was like, “For what?” And then he says, “For some pedals for the shoes.” I nearly lost it. This whole time during the sale I was telling him I lost my shoes and needed new ones and described what kind of pedals I had, and rather than actually listen to what I had said instead of talking about himself the whole time and what famous cyclists he knew, he failed to connect to me, his customer. I sternly told him that I already had pedals and brouhgt him to my bike to show him. He was like “Oh…”

Now even worse than this, he then tells me that the shoes may not fit the pedals. I hit the roof. I explained to him that I happened to be in the store the day before, showed the guys what kind of pedals I have and they said getting the shoes would be no problem. (Funny enough there was a guy in there the day before that also spoke at about eighty miles an hour and I also felt he didn’t listen to what I was saying. So I dealt with the cute salesman who was really nice too.) He bends down to look at the pedals and I have a yellow circle with some kind of squiggly black symbol in the middle of it. The shoes he sold me were Shimano. He said that I’d need the Shimano pedals because each company has their own fit for the cleats. He said he didn’t have his glasses on and had me read what was printed very small on the part of the pedal that screws into the crank. It said Shimano. I was relieved. But then I realised that the symbol I just described on my pedal was the same symbol on the packaging the cleats came in. I was astounded that he didn’t recognize the logo–yellow circle with black squiggly line in the middle. That’s when I realised this guy was so full of shit it was coming out of his ears.

Anyway, I learned a little something from this ordeal. That I have something called SPD pedals. They are also called platform pedals. They are mainly used for mountain biking and also from what I hear, fast downhill riding. Sweeet. They look like this:

And you can actually notice the Shimano logo I was talking about. That dummy in the store couldn’t even recognize the logo.

Anyway, if you also notice, the size of the pedal is larger than the average clipless pedals that usually look like this:

I wanted the platform pedals in the event that I for some reason have to ride without my cleats, or perhaps in a really good mood and lend my bike to someone for a ride–albeit a very short one. That’d be like asking a woman to take her newborn baby away from her. However, I am willing to at some point try out the smaller racing pedal to check out the action.

The shoes are pretty sweet too. They have a much stiffer sole than the previous Lakes I had for a better, more correct foot position when pedaling, but also a hard rubber that is soft enough to walk around in when need be on the hard city streets. I still haven’t gotten the courage (or the money) to get the carbonite soles that are totally inflexible and are too slippery for regular walking. But apparently they are the best for pedaling. I guess sometime in the future I shall see….

Ahh, it has been a while since I posted. First was because my net was down for like a week, but then I was having the worst luck with my bike and I was so bummed about it, I couldn’t bear to write about it for a while. But now I’m OK I guess. I had lost my riding glasses at night when I had them tucked into the front strap of my backpack, and as I pedaled upward, my knee was hitting them. I guess I popped them out and then they were gone. Next up, I was riding at night again, crossed a major six lane street and thankfully (small miracle wrapped in bad luck) got to the other side when the bolt that held my seat to the pole snapped in half. I wasn’t that far from home and I was able to retrieve the pieces and get back safely. Then I got a flat–first one in two years–and I don’t even have Mr. Tuffy in the wheel!! (I will explain Mr. Tuffy in a bit.) As it turned out, I rolled over a staple and it stuck in my wheel. Again, thank goodness I was in my area so it wasn’t that far of a walk–although walking long distances doesn’t bother me either. And the thing that really got me, the one that hurt the most was when I lost my cleats for the pedals. Ahh, that bummed me out for two days!! I had just gotten those sneakers and pedals if you remember my post when I was all jazzed about it. But then I got some new ones, something different, and I will report about them next.

So anyway, I snapped this picture of this tandem on the street and I thought it was totally post-worthy. IF you saw it in prson, it totally looks like someone had fused two random bikes together to create this monster, and what an awesome monster it is. Another photog took a picture same time I did because this bike was just so eye-catching!! I can’t believe that they parked it so casually on the street, but then again, what would-be thief would make a clean getaway on a tandem? That would be hilarious!!

And I don’t just mean being super-psyched about being a Brooklynite. I am speaking about the Brooklyn Pride Parade which took place on Saturday, 14 June which marched down one of the main drags of Park Slope, good old 7th Avenue. I am attaching here some pictures of one group that I was impressed with–Dykes on Bike Cycles of course!! As it was nighttime, the photos didn’t come out as clear as they should ahve, plus it was raining like a mother and then even on top of that, my battery ran out before the last of the parade went by. You’d think that would put a damper on the festivities or even my mood, but no, not at all. I like to go out and support the Pride parade so wasn’t going to be a grumblepuss for anything!! So here are some pictures I took of the ladies.

Now it was at this point (above) that the girls got off their bikes and proudly raised their rides up in the air to cheers from the spectators and cheers and howls from me!! I was so happy for them that I wished I could have rode with them for support and to have another woman on a bike, showing my continuing advocacy of gay rights as a straight woman. Call me corny, but I was moved by the gesture.

I am excited about the upcoming Pride parade in Manhattan which is my favorite. I will find out if maybe the Dykes on Bike Cycles will let me ride with them as well as make sure that I take better pictures. Even if they are still fuzzy, I’m putting up pictures of the riders and even better if I get an interview with one or more of them!! We shall see….

HAPPY PRIDE BROOKLYN and NEW YORK!!

P.S.–If you are interested in the other pictures I took of the parade you can see them here.

A friend of mine and I were thinking that this would be a really great tattoo:

Now you have to use your imagination and clean up the image a bit. Or maybe not. I mean if you think about it, maybe keeping the tattoo looking a bit scruffy like that would make it look more authentic. I mean, it would look like you have just scraped your leg against your cassette (like any normal day), but it’s really a tattoo!! How cool would that be?!?! Think about it–a tattoo, that looks like a grease stain on the leg that looks like a tattoo anyway, but it really is a tattoo!!

OK, I do dork out sometimes, but I’m cool with it….

So tooling around on the web I found this site called MeetUp in which meet up groups are created by interest and then they have meetings. The site is a hub to gain members and the meetings are organized and info is emailed to your email address. So naturally I typed in “cycling” in the search box. I came across a page of cycling groups and I just signed up for two of them!! The first one is called NYC Cycling Chicks. It seems there are one hundred and twenty seven members, and I guess I make it one hundred twenty eight–though I’m not sure yet because I had to fill out some questions from the organizers asking me about my riding and experience and level of difficulty. I hope they add me, that would be weird to turn someone away don’t you think? The second group I signed up with is called Beacon Bicycling. This is a new group and I think I”m member number thirteen. Lucky!! No, really, thirteen is a good number for me.

So I finally signed up with Facebook recently, hoping to get this blog out there, and I came across this pretty cool online bike store. It’s called

I Bike Do You 2 has some pretty cool stuff, including BMX gear and unicycles!! I also just happen to like the way the site looks. I urge you to check it out, see if there is something that is of use to you!! I think I want to get the Race Face Hoodlum Hoodie…..

Also, I got the little picture of the logo for the shop by using this thing called Clipmarks. You can use it to add stuff you clip from other sites to your website, blog or save them and put them into pages like I have here. Pretty neat little tool!! Now this site is going to have a lot more visuals. Yay!!

So I got some info about a cycling club called “Dykes on Bike-Cycles” from some nice girls at the Tour de Brooklyn. They are looking for riders for their 2008 Pride rides. There are three of them. One is for the Queens Pride on 1 June. Second is the Brooklyn Pride on 14 June. Third is the biggest Pride parade (and my favorite parade of the city so far) in Manhattan on 29 June. It is five bucks to ride. To RSVP go to dykesonbikecycles@gmail.com.

Check out their blog here. It’s a pretty neat page.

Check it out.