Big Bikes

Bacon Burner/
Connecting The Dots Between
The Pieces of The Puzzle/
Putting The "Raining" in Training

It's Waterworld out here. Someone folded the map of the U.S. and Boston now has the weather of the Pacific Northwest. I sat around in Lycra for two hours today, waiting for my window. It looked like I had one, then the rain came back ten fold, absolute deluge. This threw a Capuchin Monkey wrench in my plans. There was no food in the house and I began to get hungry. I made do with what we had...tater tots, bacon, and cheese. Then I felt like crap, lying on the couch full of tater tots, bacon, and cheese, in my lycra. I had to ride, I just needed a window...but a slightly larger one than normal so my fat ass could fit through it.

Starting a ride in the dry and getting caught in the rain is one thing...starting a ride in the rain is another thing entirely.

The window opened and I jumped out of it with my bike. I mean, it had stopped raining but the streets had water cascading down them. I was soaked instantaneously from the spray off my tires. Oh, the photo at the top has nothing to do with this post, that was me driving to meet Rooter last night. I was driving so fast and erratic that I had to wear a helmet. The fact that I was taking photos of myself while doing so made it all the more dangerous.

I've lived in Somerville for nigh on fifteen years off and on and I still don't know all the secret stashes of trails. I know a lot of folks drive their gay-ass SUV to the trailhead (it's OK, I can say that, my brother drives an SUV), maybe don body armor and cover about 8 miles during a ride, that's fine, I do that sometimes too. The rides I really like though are the ones where you go exploring, find new ways to cut through green spaces, linking up areas, making huge meandering loops.

People think that you need a road bike to get fit enough to race a mountain bike. Let me ask you this...what's the difference between riding a mountain bike on the road and riding a road bike on the road? It's all about continuous pedaling. Trail riding is actually pretty easy compared to going hard on the road, you get to stop pedaling way more than you realize. Try going out for a ride on a single speed in a 32 X 17 with a good 30% on pavement. You'll get to spin your legs a whole lot.

That's just my 6 Polish Zloty.


I won't bore you with the details of where I rode and how exciting it was when I made some new connections. If you don't live and ride in my hood, you won't give a flying frog. If you do live and ride in my hood and you want to check some of the stuff out, drop me a line.


If I did not have a hose in my backyard and laundry in the basement dealing with the aftermath of these rainy rides would suck so freakin' bad. I have been riding in wet shoes for weeks, I have moss growing between my toes. You've heard of a green thumb? I've got a green toe.

I think moss is beginning to cover the area where my sense of humor is housed...green toe? Ugh.
I'm outta here.