Nice Jersey

While most of the country has suffered from a heatwave, it has been unusually cool this time of year. During the early morning the sun will shine until 9:00 ot 10:00 in the morning by the beach.

I received a nice surprise in the mail from Harry.  He sent me a very nice jersey from a bike centre in Liverpool.  By coincidence when I stopped to take a picture there was a bud light glass waiting there for me.  The glass was empty.

This past weekend I did an easy 160 miles. I say easy because the two weekends before I did some climbing around the mountains close to where I live.  I was somewhat nervous as this years training has not included that much sustained climbing.  This climbing was around 8 miles and took me up to an elevation of 2,300 feet which is high for Los Angeles.  On one of the climbs I biked through clouds that were moving from left to right. That was a pretty cool feeling (it really was cool as soon as I biked out of the cloud there was a noticeable increase in the temperture).  I was happy that I could do those rides and ofcourse happy to have another chocolate milkshake to reward myself for finishing the ride.

Baseball

Living and growing up in NY, it was either the Yankees or Mets. It is the Mets for me. This week I got to experience the All Star Festivities. The Home Run Derby was held the day I arrived. Although the pitching speed is not the same as a regular game, it is impressive to see the players turn on a ball and hit it a long way. In the finals it was Yankees (Robinson Cano) vs. Red Sox (Adrian Gonzalez). Both Players did well and hit a lot of homers. Cano won and what was pretty neat each player is allowed to bring their own pitcher to throw to them and he chose his Dad.

My company produces the short digital videos for a project called MLB fan cave. Two guys watch every game of the season in a space in New York City. You can see the videos at www.mlbfancave.com. The two guys were flown out to the All Star game and the Fan cave was set up at the pool area of the stadium. I visited the pool.

The morning of the game we got to go down to the field. We were able to have catch in the Outfield. Pretty cool to be throwing a ball on a major league field.

We saw the game which the National League won 5-1, and went home the next day.

July

The weather at the end of June was 10 degrees below normal for this time of  year which made bicycling great.  However, July seems to have started a little different. It has  been 100 degrees where I live. As I have not felt so great this weekend no biking for me. As tomorrow is a holiday and I am feeling better perhaps a little ride.

With the XC11 finishing I think about when I finished nearly two years ago. You think that you are going to make great changes in your life, but at the end of the day, you are who you are.  It is fun riding the bike, but what makes it harder for me is that I still pass where we started in 2009 and it is now a bittersweet moment.

I bought the bike in 2007, trained and was fortunate enough to bike cross country, meeting a great group of people and making friends who are more like family. I read the XC11 blogs, but it is not the same thing as biking it yourself. Sometimes now when I ride, I think too myself "Could I do it again ?" Will it be the same experience as the first time ? Sometimes the memories are better than you remembered.

The answer is i am not sure, but I would like to try it again, but a different route

That goal and thought is what keeps me riding.

The Music will never be the same

Dear Mr. Car

Dear Mr. Car

A bicycle has the same rights as a car.  Please bear this in mind when:

1) You make a left hand turn at a light and a bike is coming straight through the light.  The bike does have the right of way just like a car.

2) When you are riding behind me and the traffic is stopped at a light and you are beeping at me because I am slowing down to stop at the light and you want to be one car in front of me even though the light is still red and you have no place to go.

3) You decide to  make a right hand turn and do not signal and I almost crash into the back of you.

4) You decide to go from the left hand lane to the right hand lane and almost hit me.  You wave to me to apologize for almost hitting me, but somehow I do not think that absolves you of poor driving.

Your Friendly neighborhood bicyclist.

4K

While I enjoy the riding it has been a little difficult as I have ridden with no bike goal this year. 2 years ago it was cross country. Last year it was the death ride. Having said that I continue my riding on the weekends and my commute to work.  This week I hit the 4,000 mile mark. I feel it has been an easy 4,000 miles as not as much climbing as the last two years.

As most of the persons who follow my blog know, Harry has joined Barbie for her remainder of the journey she started with us in 2009. 

Ofcourse Harry coould not go without 1 and 2 and Boston. He even had some bottles from the death ride.

Empty Calories

Lately I have been riding with 2 friends who live close to me. Today we met one of my Friend's friends a little up north from where I live and whom we biked with last year. We drove around 40 miles north to meet them. We biked around Ventura and Santa Barbara County. There was a fair amount of climbing. We biked from a little north of Ventura around Lake Casitas. Below is a map of our route.

The ride was around 45 miles, but there was a fair amount of climbing.

After the biking some of the group decided to go to eat. It was decided that we would stop at

In 'n Out Burger. Although our intentions were to order a chocolate shake everyone in our group ended up getting a double double, French Fries and a chocolate shake (or coke instead of shake). For me that was around 1,700 calories.

After driving home I biked another 6 miles for a total of 51 for the day as I had to burn off some of those calories.