look at her, all riding her bike

pankakes and polo

2008-04-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

a lot has happened since i last wrote.
most seriously, the passing of matthew manger-lynch, struck while riding his bicycle.
most excitingly, completion of my first fixed-gear bicycle, an as-yet-unnamed special road racer, at west town bikes.
most lushiously, the induction of the bikewinter 2009 co-chairs, aka myself and martin hazard, both avid midnight marauders.
i am not sure if i will deal with any or all of these in much more detail.

but today. let me tell you about sunday.

i went to pankakes, hosted by greg davies, who lives up in the boonies of kedzie and montrose. sheesh, who lives west of kedzie?! anyway, winds were fierce and i was glad to have the gears of cadence, the green ladies schwinn i've been riding since january.

the north winds helped me on my way home, aka south. and since i was so far west, i rode down kimball, which turned into homan (?!) on my way to bike polo in garfield park. i'm not sure if they went into winter hibernation, but it seems these guys will be playing every sunday from 2 to dusk, or at least 6:30, on the tennis courts a ways south of the conservatory.

i've been a spectator at polo a couple times before, and it's always a good, chill time with cool people. i played for the first time today, though, and i'm not sure how i feel about it. it seems i did a lot of riding around in circles, which i think i do enough of professionally. i didn't really hit the ball, um, but i swung at it a few times without wiping out.

well, there's a holla atcha for now. don't be a stranger.

'da best-laid plans of bikes and men...

2008-01-13T02:26:00.000-08:00

bicycle church spoilers

the way to the river is unclear, particularly eastbound. i adore 51st, and might hold out for it. perhaps 55th because it's fast, but the lights can fight you, plus the drivers and all their fumes stink. if i'm on 47th, though, i will definitely watch out for the CURBS.

post-river, cornell has some nasty, but in the invigorating way, traffic. 57th is one-way east under the metra tarck, on the block between stony and lake park, but i will be taking it anyway. ohmigod, was that the proper use of tarck?

post–med bread, i'm not sure if i'll prefer to hit 55th on the light (woodlawn) or the stop sign (university). if uni then 55th to cottage. waiting to see where my spidey traffic senses direct me. (wow there are like 4 churches on that little stretch alone. give it up south side.) though i usually prefer drexel to king, whenever i see church traffic on drexel it is raunchy. (of course, i've only seen the afternoon church traffic, ha.)

OH who am i kidding? when i leave hyde park, i will probably start going home on autopilot. i miiiight figure it out at 33rd and halsted, or i might actually—and accidentally—go home.

i know there are shorter routes, but this is supposed to be a tour and i will treat it as such. i mean, i might as well check out eckersall park down on yates, take a little LSD, and visit one of my favorite ladies while i'm down there, circle optional. (and no, that is not what she said. she is bronze and cannot speak.)

two-and-a-half hours until registration. yeeeeessssss.

it figures...

2007-12-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

aaaaaw, man! i'm outside chicago for one fucking week and they're already burning car effigies without me. those jerks.

oh, the joy of BikeWinter. the full photo set is here, and future mayhem is here.

lancaster bicycle club!

2007-12-23T07:37:00.000-08:00

turns out such a thing does exist! despite predictions to the contrary on yonder eljay, i went on a ride with them yesterday.

the course was listed as 22 miles, rolling (as in rolling hills), with a pace of 11-13 mph. now, 11-13 mph is slower than i am used to going on my bicycle. my cruising speed around chicago is about 15, faster if traffic lights and wind are in my favor. i even had my eye on the "A" rides listed on the LBC page, with a 16-21 mph speed. perhaps faster than i'd go on my lonesome (unless i was late for something), but absolutely doable, especially with drafting.

so this ride would be cake, despite the fact that i was neither well hydrated nor well rested at the start of it. a slowish pace for 22 miles? all over it.

but the hills, my friends, the hills. this was not a thing i took into account. they have some flat rides, too, and also hilly, very hilly, and mountainous. you can see terrain classification details on the bottom of the LBC homepage. i will not repost the "rolling" category here; it is kind of embarrassing.

and why is it embarrassing? because i was absolutely worn out by the ride. holy crap. i left about 4 miles before the ride's ending and took a shortcut home, accompanied by a fellow named tom (i think) who lives nearby, on spooky nook road. the shortcut was about 4 miles, though, so i don't feel like too much of a cheater. to assuage my feelings of inadequacy, tom assured me that this was one of their toughest rolling routes.

[very soon i will write about the actual ride right here.]

thankfully, the LBC rides in early january i might make it to are all flat. and hopefully biking around lancaster and getting shamed by these hills might lessen, might lessen veeeeerry slightly, the ass-whooping i will receive on Da Tour. but some riding, however pathetically i perform, is certainly better than the alternative.

...right?

i leave you with the following write-up of Da Tour, found here. emphasis mine:

Tour da Chicago
A unique winter tradition in the city is the now-infamous Tour Da Chicago. With roots set in the bike-messenger scene, the unsanctioned Tour Da Chicago draws its inspiration from the alleycat style of bike racing. The simplicity of these events endears them to their participants. There are few rules and stipulations aside from a starting point and end point, with a few twists usually thrown in for good measure.

Recent editions of the Tour have drawn many of the same names found on top of the results pages of high-profile road races in the summer. If you're a rider who requires structure and support for your events, you might consider sitting this one out. However, if you want to meet some passionate cyclists and treat yourself to a unique perspective on riding in Chicago, you should seek out this rollicking affair.

While the stereotypical alleycat racer might be found riding against traffic on State Street with his hair on fire, the reality is that Tour Da Chicago races are only as dangerous or safe as you make them. Information on the Tour Da Chicago appears spontaneously at www.tour.chicago.il.us.

from an e-mail to my bike&build brethren

2007-12-23T03:19:00.000-08:00

obviously at the end of bike&build, everyone on the trip exchanged contact information so we could share pictures and general updates on life. the other day i sent an update, some of which is copied below. occasional explanations are bracketed.

[at first i talked about doing the chicago perimeter ride with anna, and linked to my post on here about it.]

ok, back to the fall. with one last century under my chamois, i was off to a new quarter of schooling! i'm almost done with my degree; i just have this huge thesis left to write, then one last class to take in the spring. my winter plans involve writing said giant paper and finding a "career" job. eep. if anyone has any ideas about what i want to do with my life, do let me know!

other than the perimeter ride, i have continued to ride my bicycle like it's my job. [a couple of other people had said in their update e-mails that they don't ride much, or at all, anymore] (sigh, i must say i'm disappointed, though not entirely surprised, that some of you now have expensive dust-collecting bicycle sculptures! get out there kids; live the dream, ride your bikes!!!)

indeed, a bicycle is definitely THE way to get around chicago&emdash;free, reliable, and it always goes exactly where you want, unlike the two-bucks-a-pop, where-the-fuck-is-the-bus, gee-i'm-here-now-i-get-to-walk-a-half-mile CTA (aka chicago public transit). and i think it goes without saying that bikes>cars... healthy, non-deadly, non-polluting, etc. you don't get legs like these pushing a gas pedal, know what i'm saying? OF COURSE YOU DO!

in the spring, i was already using my bike to get almost everywhere i needed to go, but this fall i had the added bonus of a bicycle commute to campus! for reasons of claustrophobia and money, i moved out of the UofC's neighborhood of hyde park to the adorable (cheaper!) neighborhood of bridgeport, home of the sox. bridgeport's about 6 miles from hyde park, so i had a really nice half-hour commute to class and back all fall. i definitely enjoyed the chance to clear my head and mentally prep for learning, and the adrenaline burst isn't a bad way to start the day, either.

i've been doing some bike advocacy things, too; working a lot with BikeWinter.org to plan events and whatnot. i encourage everyone to take a minute to look at the website. it has a LOT of helpful tips for staying in the saddle year-round, everything from what to wear in the bitter cold to how to keep your bicycle from getting eaten alive by salt. there's also a great calendar of events for chicago, and a couple of other midwestern towns have calendars as well.

i've been critical massing, of course. [i talked a bit about post-bike&build adventures in san francisco, and recommend fine SF establishments to two b&b alumnae who now live there]

some UofC friends and i started a smaller, local critical mass in hyde park on the third friday of every month (so as to not conflict with chicago critical mass on the last fridays). we've been getting crowds ranging from 10-40, which i consider a great success! i'd really love to see more of a bike scene happening in hyde park; a lot of folks have bikes but hardly know how to ride them, let alone do any maintenance or mechanical work to them. and just a few weeks ago, i helped a friend of mine plan and execute an alleycat in hyde park to benefit a project he's involved with. you see the flyer he made, and read more about it up on my flickr.

yeah, so alleycats are super-fun, and y'all should definitely ride one sometime. my first one was this fall, before the hyde park one. the theme was sadie hawkins, and it was partnered, though most alleycats are not. female registration was $5, and male registration was $40(!), or $10 if you had a female partner. so lots of girls asked guys to be their partner, and the guys, happy to save $30, came along for the ride. proceeds went to a local women's health clinic, which was groovy. the afterparty was one of the best parties i've ever been to ever, though the next morning was rough. maybe that had something to do with their beer pricing: the first beer was $1, and subsequent beers were 25 cents. you just turned in your empty and gave some fine folks a quarter in exchange for a new beer. makes party clean-up a snap! note to self: next time, after sprinting for 20 miles, have a more substantive dinner than a clif bar and 8 (?) PBRs.

despite the rampant cheap beer, the alleycat scene is something i'd like to get more into. there's a series of 6 alleycats called the Tour Da Chicago staring in january; i'm going to do my best in those, though i will be at a big disadvantage because of the bike i'll be using. i've taken my b&b bike to my parents' house in lancaster, PA, where i am right now. why, you may ask? i was in no hurry to expose sancho to a chicago winter, i was always paranoid about theft, and it was getting to be a pain carrying him up and down my apartment steps all the time. so he's in PA, where there are actually HILLS for all those gears. i'll probably leave him here when i head back to chicago in january, since i have a good-enough "other" bike in chicago.

that other bike is called murray, and you can also find him on my flickr page. the bike is made from cheap (aka HEAVY) steel, or steelish something, has only 6 gears, and has no clipless pedals. not ideal for racing, but i'm not exactly in it to win it. my goals for Da Tour are to ride every stage (they're spread over 6 weekends), finish every stage (no DNFs!), make at least 4 new friends whose names i remember, and stay rubber side down (aka no wipeouts).

in other related news, just yesterday i had to maintain the chain bracelet i've been wearing since amarillo, TX for the very first time. the chain was ridden halfway across the country by breanna, and had one link that was sticking. i put a single drop of purple extreme lube by the pin, and now all is well. btw, that thing makes going through airport security a blast! i beep through the metal detectors every time, tell the guards it's because of the chain on my wrist, explain that, no, i can't take it off, and then get searched. every single time, woohoo! i do kinda like the attention, though; nothing like a good pat-down before your flight! everybody wins!

whew, that's about all i got for you. with any luck, i'll be in NYC for december's critical mass on the 28th, and sticking around for new years. [here i give a shout-out to fellow rider laura, who lives in NYC] anyone else around nyc for the holidays, or pennsylvania for that matter?

FINALLY, if any of you kids ever make it out to chicago, give me a holler! or if you want to visit and need a couch/floor to sleep on, also let me know! i love showing off my city :)

now if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna go ride my bike now.
lauren

placeholder

2007-09-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

biking in lancaster
parking in pilsen
commuting
t-shirt printing
marauder meeting
bike winter meeting
how massing saved my life?!

baby's nth century: chicago perimeter ride!

2007-09-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

this century went around the perimeter of chicago. that's perimeter, not to be confused with perineum. that ride would have been much more painful!

it wasn't painful, though, at least not for my badass, already accustomed to long days in the brooks. some folks started complaining about their bums at about mile 60, though they were in street clothes. bike shorts make a huge difference, people. as does ass lube.

at the time of the ride, all of my butt'r was in a box somewhere between san francisco and chicago. why? well, a summer of daily use (and occasional abuse) of my rolling suitcase left it with some large, NSFF holes. (not safe for flight. duh.) also, bikes are hellof awkward when they're in boxes, and i did not want to be wrestling with a sketchy rolling suitcase, a messenger bag, and a bike box, and i especially did not want to be wrestling to get all these things onto the CTA. so i shipped most of my shit, traveling with only my bike box, the bag that fits on my bike rack, and messenger bag. and believe you me, i got some weird looks as i reassembled my bicycle at baggage claim! and then i had a great 7ish-mile ride to my new home in bridgeport.

but back to the ride. fortunately, my ass was not lubeless, because anna brought some over! anna, one of my fellow bike & builders, goes to grinnell college in iowa. i lured her to chicago with, "hey, you're from the midwest! come to the perimeter ride!! i KNOW you want to do another century this summer—seven is definitely not enough!!!" she drove over with her friend jasmine, who doesn't really bike but is cool anyway.

i had some other friends on the ride; martin "safety" hazard and andy "the professor," two of my midnight marauding friends. the lot of us met for breakfast at the hollywood grill, where i met a few more folks. after a delicious breakfast (broccoli and feta omelet for me!), we rode east to the lakefront. and then we went waaaay south (the idea, after all, was to ride the perimeter—"live on the edge," as the cue sheet instructed us), stopping first at the mussolini pillar near soldier field. once down south (95th? maybe?) we stopped for lunch (homemade mexican food sold from a trailer), then rambled on west...

obviously the most important thing about long bike rides is food, so the next thing i remember clearly is an ice cream stop at the original rainbow cone, on 92nd and western. i had never heard of the place, but apparently everyone loves this place, and everyone eats rainbow-flavored ice cream cones at the taste of chicago. i suppose i should clarify that it's not a rainbow flavor, but rather a rainbow of colors in the cone. however, i invite you to pause now and consider what a rainbow would taste like. and if your answer is something lame like "water vapor," i invite you to use a little imagination next time, ok?

i don't have my cue sheet, but i think the next big thing was a jaunt out to the suburb of berwyn to see the spindle, possibly for the last time. you can check out some spindle-saving press here. and yes, we ate there, too, at claude's favorite fast food "restaurant."

then it was off to superdawg very very conveniently located directly next to a liquor store. we're probably at mile 70 or 80ish at this point, which was close enough to the end of the 100 miles that most of us switched to a different sort of hydration. i stopped avoiding beef for long enough to have a famed hot dog, which was decent but definitely no hot doug's.

the bonus hydration made our next stop, the leaning tower of niles, some other suburb, lean juuuust a little more. after that, we had a bit of a haul to the lake. it seemed extra super long to me, since all that hydration had me looking for a poorly-lit bush or tree on the side of the street. places to drop trou and take a piss are few and far between, though, when you're not in middle-of-nowhere, USA. (which is probably one of the weirdest things i'll miss about bike & build: stopping anywhere—anywhere!—to pee, walking 2 feet off the road/highway, declaring, "this spot is perfect!", and popping a squat. early in the trip, mind you, we were much more vigilant about finding cover. it was probably the change in terrain to ranches and desert, combined with pure laziness, that caused our drastic shift in modesty...)

i shared my overhydration with vic, whose name i've seen online plenty but had never met before. very familiar with evanston, which we were riding east to at this point, vic knew the planned route to the lake, and volunteered to wait up for me. we soon passed a suitable empty park with some suitable unlit shrubbery, and the remainder of my ride to the lake was much more comfortable.

and then it was naked time! and by naked time, i mean some marauders may or may not have opted to rinse off the day's sweat in lake michigan's pristine waters. i was sure anna would join us, but she took a nap instead.

a short and uneventful ride to the handlebar followed. there were $5 margaritas. incriminating photos exist. the end.

summer of (bike) love

2007-09-04T14:46:00.000-07:00

so my stay in san francisco--which is ending in two days (!)--happened to encompass a free festival in golden gate park. a 40-year anniversary of the summer of love, the event went by the same name and featured a bunch of mediocre cover bands. it was a nice festival scene, though, and i had a good time. despite the city's exodus to burning man, crowd estimates were 100,000; i guess if you throw a free party, people will show up!

in the area of vendors, there was the usual: fried food, psychedelic art, commemorative t-shirts and posters. there were also a lot of political groups, with their buttons and magnets and bumper stickers. now, during the summer i had been collecting stickers so that i could decorate sancho (my bicycle, if you haven't caught on yet). and the bike's pretty well covered, but there's still plenty of room on the downtube, fork, and stays, so i'm always on the lookout for more bling. and what a perfect venue to get something to protest oil war! but. the thing about all these anti-war stickers, was that they were too big for sancho's delicate aluminum tubes. they were all bumper stickers, designed to slap on your oil-powered automobile. I COULD NOT FIND A WAR PROTEST STICKER THAT WAS SMALL ENOUGH TO FIT ON MY BICYCLE FRAME.

gah.

and cell phones. man, cell phones. i met up with some friends, and i met them across the street because the festival was a mob scene. but i overheard many a cell phone conversation of someone describing their location to someone who was looking for them. hilarious. "OK, i'm in front of the multi-colored bus, near a rainbow umbrella!" like that narrows it down. next you'll be telling them there's a dude in tie-dye in front of you, and it sorta smells like weed.

arrival details

2007-08-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

are posted here.

san francisco! in two days!! squee!!!

got no friends in arizona

2007-07-28T18:12:00.001-07:00

the title's not what you think! it's a tea leaf green (aka coffee bean brown) song, one that happens to be my bike & build theme song.

so here we are in page, arizona, at page middle school. i chuckled when i realized the school's abbreviation. there is internet, whoohoo, but the school's system blocks e-mail sites! balls to that. blogs are cool, though; go figure.

two days until the grand canyon.

the thing about the southwest is that there are hills here, boo. but now my legs have some hills in them, too.

ok. time to see if apple support and i can coax my ipod into functioning once again.

huuugs!

oh man, soon i will have a summer's worth of achewood to catch up on. i can't wait!

superstition

2007-07-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

dallas gave us a much needed chance to go to a bike shop. i got a new pair of shorts and more ass lube to keep my bum happy, and assorted other goodies. i considered a new tire, but decided to hold off. one of the leaders, josh, got a new pair of armadillo tires, a brand with a lot of happy, low-flat-count riders.

so this morning, in the route meeting. josh tells us we're going to have more car traffic than usual, since we're going through dallas, fort worth, and irving. (irving? i think.) and then he tells us to "watch out" for him on the road, because he'd just put on two new armadillos.

about two minutes later, we hear the sound of a gunshot.

now, we were staying in a rough neighborhood in west dallas, so a gunshot wouldn't necesarily be out of place. not many shootings happen at 6:45 in the morning, though. the sound was just the blow-out of a tire. of josh's tire.

whoops!

June Critical Mass: Special New Orleans edition!

2007-07-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

Locals I’d talked to about NOLA Critical Mass weren’t sure if the rides still happened, so it was with apprehension and hope that I showed up in Jackson Square at 5:30. There were two other cyclists there, and they didn’t seem to be there for a ride. I consulted a map to make sure I was in the right place, prompting a woman on the bench behind me to ask, “OK, where are you trying to go?” I chatted with her for a while, then with a guy she knew named Scratch. This guy was a character, half-covered in tattoos (including spiders dropping from the side of his eyes like teardrops!). Somehow ATM fees came up—one ATM fee I’d seen was $4—so I asked Scratch if there was an ATM for my bank in the area. There was one all of three blocks away, so I went off.

When I returned, much to my surprise, there was a group of 5 or 10 bikers standing in a clump in the Square. “There’s your Critical Mass,” said Scratch, who had been talking to them.

…more later!

hands on/ass lube

2007-06-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

why all the posts? you may be wondering. well, for the past two nights we've been staying in Hands On headquarters in Biloxi, and one of the amenities in this awesome place is the internet. whoo! there are 5 communal computers, plus wireless. not to mention an incredible atmosphere with tons of cool people. jeff describes it a bit in the bike & build blog. this is definitely a welcome change from our previous digs at the ant-infested camp christian--i actually woke up in the middle of the night because i felt ants crawling on me. eeeew.

but alas, it is late and i must get to bed soon--5 a.m. wake-up tomorrow! and then 90 miles to n'awlins. i wanted to take this chance, though, to share a link to some other blogs, and also briefly discuss ass lube.

here, matthew shares a hilarious story about his ass lube. ass lube?! (or, to be more family-friendly, butt cream?!) i know, it seems gross, but when your ass is in sweaty bike shorts on a saddle for hours on end, it helps to have something that prevents chafing. also instructive is t.c.'s discussion of it here, in the post where he documents his 600km ride (that's 343 miles! and i was nervous about 106...) to qualify him for the paris-brest-paris. first, i must explain that the chamois (pronounced "shammy") is the padded, slightly diaper-like part on actual bike shorts. it's super-sexy, trust me. and now to quote t.c.:

Saturday June 9. Up at 4:45. Showered. Sunscreen and ointments. Registration. Breakfast. Chatted. Stretched. At 6am the 16 or so of us were off.
[...]
I reapplied the ointment… Ok. I have been less than forward with you until this point, but we must discuss the reality of the leather chamois. It is mandatory that the padding in my shorts be greased in some fashion, to prevent chaffing, so I apply petroleum jelly to them as well as my ‘sit bones’ and other sensitive parts. Hey, if slathering my ass with Vaseline makes me less of a red blooded hetero male, then… uh, well… well it just DOSEN’T ok?

and here is the comment i left for t.c.:

oh, tc, as soon as you said "sunscreen and ointments," i knew you were talking about ass lube.

bike & build recommends against vaseline, actually, since it's harder to wash off youself and your chamois. (i have an inappropriate comment that i'm dying, just dying to add, but i don't want to tarnish your blog. maybe i'll put it on mine someday.) most of our riders use Chamois Butt'r, which has a downright adorable logo.

oh, oh, and lest you think i'm only here to talk about ass lube, congratulations!

my inappropriate comment, of course, is that vaseline is oil-based. so beware: during any post-ride victory butt-fucking that may occur, the condom is more likely to break. < /public service announcement>

i would also like to note that, though i typically only apply in the morning, i applied ass lube on four separate occasions during our 106-mile ride. one of these happened on the side of route 90: i spied an alabama license plate, stopped to pick it up, and decided to reapply. as i stood a few feet from the shoulder with my hand down the back of my pants, a passing motorist honked, i can only assume out of sheer joy. the same thing happened two days ago, when i removed my raincoat while riding. (have i told you i finally mastered hands-free riding on sancho? WELL I HAVE!) i think that driver was hoping for more stripping...

baby's first century

2007-06-24T19:04:00.001-07:00

so my throat was sore for most of our stay in jacksonville, and i kept waking up with congestion and aches. i did the first three 60-mile days, and the following two 50-mile days, but i woke up miserable on the following day and decided to ride in the van. getting better instead of getting worse just seemed like a nice idea, and i figured some rest would help me achieve that.

we ended my van day in defuniak springs, FL, and i, hopped up on sudafed, was feeling much better by late afternoon. that was our first night of camping (we have more! mostly out west, though, in the middle of nowhere), and we stayed in an RV park. most of us went for a swim, where we played some games including marco polo. this is especially amusing because one of the riders is named marco. he, alas, was not present for the game.

the next day brought a 60-miler into milton. and THEN. THEN. 106 miles from milton, FL to mobile, AL. what what. my longest ride before the trip was 45 miles, ok, and i was pleasantly surprised when i did sucessive 60-mile rides with no problems. but a century? OVER a century?

i tried not to be nervous. i tried to think, hey, this is just like all those other rides! i'll just be on my bike for another few hours! it'll be great fun; i love being on my bike!! but then the creeping doubt: yeah, it's just like those other rides... except twice as long! ack!

adding to my fear was a time limit: we were taking a ferry for three miles, making our journey a total of 109 miles. but the ferry left every hour-and-a-half, and we had to make the 2:45 ferry. oh, did i forget to mention that the ferry was 80 miles away? well, um, the ferry was 80 miles away, and the 4:15 would put us at the host location, 26 miles after the ferry, too late. the group had to decide when to wake up so that everyone could make it by 2:45. it had been taking us about 2 hours to hit the road in the mornings, after packing, cleaning up the host location, loading the trailer, eating breakfast, having the route meeting, etc., and so we decided to wake up at 4. gross.

i think it was joe who said a century is all in your head. which is right on. and nothing beats 25 riding buddies, there for moral support and drafting. the route meeting included a group hug that turned into an impromptu singing/swaying of "lean on me." so choice.

and we were off. i stayed with the fastest riders in the front of the pack for 15 miles before they dropped me on some hills. hills, what? i ride in chicago, thank you very much, and i'm not down with this elevation business. i was alone for 10ish miles until another pack overtook me, so i joined in their loose paceline.

this is some beautiful riding that's happening here, by the way. we were on a scenic highway with lovely views of the gulf. perhaps more beautiful than lake michigan, which i do miss dearly.

lunch was on a beach around mile 44. we had a special treat of cheese and lunchmeat, which was a welcome change from the usual pb&j (and often, banana). mile 48 was "welcome to alabama!" -- a sign that sliced some of my bar tape, boo, fortunately just down in the drops where i don't grip often.

i mostly rode alone after that, since the group i was with was pushing harder than i wanted to. nothing was particularly notable except some gorgeous greenery on a delightful curving road. ah, and the final road to the ferry, which was somewhere between 5 and 10 miles, seemed to go on foooorrrrever.

i made it in time for the 1:15 ferry, as did about a dozen others. we were allowed to go ahead over, and we all, minus the two leaders who had made it, decided to go ahead. on the ferry i texted most of my biker friends to update them on my century status, and thanks to those who sent love back!

i rode the last 26 miles with emily. we stopped at a chevron for snacks and powerade (since we decided to go on the earlier ferry, we missed a second lunch break--carried by the van--on the ferry). the thing about gas stations in the south is that you can buy beer there. beer. and even more exciting, you can buy one at a time. no need to lug a six-pack around. the selection leaves something to be desired, though. my choices were piss beers, girly bacardi shits, corona, or heineken. confident i would make the next 20-something miles, i obviously bought myself a victory heineken. we ate snacks, headed across the street to a tie-dye t-shirt shop, chatted with the shopkeepers for a bit, and bought shirts before heading off.

now, i was a little worried about my beer staying cool. i had wrapped it in my raincoat to try to insulate it, but it was still in a black cargo bag on my rear rack. but then. then. about a half-mile into our resumed ride, what do i see on the side of the road but a koozie. a koozie! is that how it's spelled? you know, those little things you put your drink into to keep it cold. this was clearly a sign from god that he gave my century his blessing, and he wanted it to end with cold beer. i pulled over and picked up the koozie. groundscore.

my cyclometer was slightly off from emily's, so we made two additional stops to take pictures of our smiling faces next to our screens, displaying 100.0 miles. another stop at a fruit stand for peaches, strawberries, plums, and blueberries. the final miles to our resting place in Camp Christian (you can't make this shit up) went so so soooo slowly, but before long we made it. it was 4:30, maybe 5.

drinking in host locations is verboten, so i went on a little walk. called the 'rents to tell them i survived. ate the rest of my gas-station snacks, a pop-tart and some mixed nuts. and drank my cold, delicious beer.

coast to coast on two wheels

2007-06-18T17:07:00.000-07:00

sadly, i will have to take a hiatus from chicago rides this summer. gladly, it's because i'm busy riding my bike across the country! i'm riding with bike & build, a nonprofit that raises money and awareness for affordable housing causes across the nation. i'm on the southern route, riding from jacksonville, FL to san francisco. you can follow my trip on our blog, updated by a different rider each day. (well, until we run out of riders; then we start over again.)

though i'm obviously sad to miss CCM, especially june's rumored jaunt up sheridan road, i'll be doing my best to mass from the road. for june's CM, we'll be in new orleans! so i have declared that i am totally going, and that everyone else should go, too. it seems they meet in jackson square at the usual time of 5:30. (we're in n'awlins for a while doing build days and whatnot, so getting a bike map of the city will be high on my to-do list). for july we'll be in kayenta, AZ, though, and i'm just guessing that they don't have a critical mass up and running. alas. we arrive in san francisco on august 16, and i'm going to couch-surf until the SFCM on the 31st. and of COURSE i'll be in chicago for the 10-year anniversary mass in september.

ok, this public library closes soon so i best wrap it up. um, biking all day is fun! our first ride, 60 miles, was the longest i had done to date. but i did it! and i did another 60 miles the next day, and another 60 the next. today we had an easy day of a mere 50 miles. oh my legs will be so mighty, and my brooks will be so broken in.

i rear-ended a car.

2007-06-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

oh yes, yes i did. and i got bruises, bruises so epic that johnny payphone commented on them after saturday's wnbr. (man has an eljay! this pleases me greatly.)

the left side of my face slammed against the car's trunk. amusingly enough, a resulting bruise under my eye made half of me, just half, look really sleepy for a couple days. i got a nice welt on my left thigh and banged up my right knee. i chipped a tooth and nearly bit through my lip—turns out it's scary to spit blood! but the most painful thing is that i killed pierre, at least for now.

a beautiful thing ended that night. more than one.

why yes, i can show you pictures, at least of pierre and my chipped tooth. maybe i will post them when i'm older.

r.i.p. pierre

2007-06-02T05:18:00.000-07:00

the frame is bent. just behind the headset, on both of the "top" tubes and on the bottom tube.

the front wheel is trapped to the right of the frame. this bike will only be ridden again if the front wheel is replaced with a much smaller one. or if the rider only wants to go in counter-clockwise circles.

look at how i detach from it. a week ago, i would have talked about pierre and his headset; now it's "the"s and "it"s and "this bike"s.

so, pierre. has some tight components. his french-threaded bottom bracket is hard to find, so i could sell it or, in the event of future peugeots, hang onto it. the saddle, handlebars, pedals, and rack will likely be transferred to the bicycle of my future. the fork and seat tube are probably fine, but not necessarily worth saving. the wheels seem fine, the brake is fine, all the drive train shit is fine; the derailleur is all of three weeks old.

i cannot believe this. i am stripping down and piecing out pierre, undressing him with my mind. (i would do it with my eyes, but to see him i'd have to move to the other side of the couch.)

rest in... piece?

may critical mass

2007-05-25T17:06:00.000-07:00

i rode up to mass with steph, as well as second-years emma and gwen. emma is friends with max, and was in fact riding his fixed gear. (max is currently biking the pch on emma's road bike.) i had a mental block in remembering gwen's name, i suspect since gwen w. can't ride a bike.

i stuck my trash can in my rear basket, along with a "please recycle" sign and a blue bag. the trash can is medium-sized, about knee height. i was initally worried about how much of the basket would be taken up by it, but i had no reason to worry: there was still room for a case.

a photo of my recycling bin was captured here. i'm not in the photo, but you can see the rear view of mah bin. you can also see AndyTheProfessor, a midnight marauder, in his short shorts! look for the pale legs on the far left. he'd just ridden down from evanston, and put on real pants over the bike shorts shortly after he arrived. and before any of us had a chance to make circumcision jokes, too!

still in daley plaza, some guy complimented my recycling bin. i thanked him, and told him to feel free to toss in any recyclables he had. our conversation then went something like this:
he: oh, no thanks, i don't have anything recyclable.
me: would you like one?
he: ...
he: what?
me: um, i was offering you a beer, dude.

and he was shocked. appalled. "you drink while you ride your bike?" i was equally baffled. "is this your first critical mass?" my guess was wrong: he'd been to them in ithaca, portland, and some other northwest city (eugene?); he was attending a chicago cm for the first time, though.

i ended up taking the recycling load back to hyde park from logan square, which made for a noiser ride, but wasn't really a bother. the recycling contained...

1 can budweiser
5 cans bud light
1 bottle corona
8 bottles flying dog
4 bottles groovy brew
1 bottle heineken
1 can heineken
5 cans mgd
1 16-oz can miller high life
1 can miller lite
1 24-oz can miller lite
5 cans old style
1 can pbr
1 16-oz can pbr
1 16-oz can sapporo
6 cans tecate
1 water bottle

for a total of 27 aluminum cans, 14 glass bottles, and 1 plastic bottle.

i'll be thinking about this some more, and likely adding more later, but two things strike me: the large amount of piss beer, and the large number of cans. for real, what's the deal with all the light beer? are these bikers worried about their carb intake or something? i just don't know.

as for cans vs. bottles, cans are obviously a better choice for riding; in the unfortunate event that one falls ("man down!"), you neither spray your fellow riders with glass shards nor endanger your/everyone's tires with broken glass. it may be less conspicuous, also; there were a group of guys drinking tecate, for instance, and i initally thought the red cans they were holding contained coca-cola. very tricky.

i was near todd allen's sound system for most of the ride, which was chill. i didn't see any conflicts or spills, for example. i'm not sure where i was in the mass, which alex wilson estimated at 1500, but i seemed to be closer to the middle and back. i tried, but not too hard, to catch up to the front a few times, but the streets were pretty crowded. typically i just scoot left and breeze by, but the sheer mass! so many bicycles! it was hard to get through. i also slowed down whenever i heard someone say, "hey! recycling girl!" or something to that effect, which made it harder to advance.

i had another anectode, but what what was it. um, i saw deniz and fred and met luke, a guy who's in my linguistics class. deniz was doing a sound recording, after an unpleasant interaction with a cop last month. some guy had a small camcorder duct taped to his headtube; he was filming a bike's-eye-view of the ride. oh! i thought of the story. in a six-way intersection, lincoln-ashland-belmont perhaps, we were (understandably) taking our sweet time. keep in mind i was at least halfway back in the mass, but i am pretty certain the mass didn't zip through as quickly as it could have. there was probably some circling going on, where the first few riders in an intersection, um, well, the term is actually a pretty obvious one, so i'll spare you. some photo evidence shows some chicago hold-ups going down, too. a chicago hold-up slows down the mass in two ways: one, there are obstacles (bikers standing around) that impede the mass's flow; two, passing bikers will sometimes stop to chat with friends who are bike-saluting or, for that matter, corking.

by the time i got to this intersection the hold-ups had ceased, but there was still some general milling around. the mass had made a soft right turn (though as a southsider, i don't know which street we turned onto, or off of). groups of cyclists were corking and talking, either to each other or to drivers who wanted to know what was going on (and likely, when these idiot bikers were going to get out of their way!). it was clear the mass had been there for a while, and cops were starting to get fed up -- nudging us forward, politely enough. one officer, though, didn't quite know what he should say into his loudspeaker. he apparently thought it would be wise to tell us to move along and "let these cars through." oooh, yes, let's let these cars through. why, that should be a new ccm motto!

the map said we were to end at montrose beach; i can only assume that's where we ended. i do know that there were bathrooms, and friends i hadn't seen all ride, and beers finished. there were two after-parties in logan square; i went to one with a big group: justin and martin (who quibbled over the best way to get there), tallbike travis on a rollover bike (you have to see it), elizabeth and richie (two new marauders), steph, andy, malinda, some guys whose name i forget, and perhaps some others. we stopped by a liquor store on fullerton before heading to the party, where alex and margot were. there was vegan food, and dancing/flailing, and good times for all.

may marauders: blues brothers

2007-05-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

oh man, this ride was hella fun. w00t.

what what.

2007-05-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

i tried to start a respectable blog once. one that wasn't on livejournal or blogspot. one that was open source and sexy. i even got a tight url from the monks of cool; http://bluestreak.monksofcool.org/

you can see the pathetic remains there, for it was not to be. i am insufficiently l33t. so here we are on blogspot, where the easy-ass interface will make it easy-ass to post all these entires that have been sitting around on my hard drive. and some place-holding posts will go in for all those entries that have been sitting around in my head, because maybe i'll eventually type them up.

and the name? well, it's no blue streak. but it's true, lauren bikes! and i'm totally going to tell this blog all about it. just you wait.

april ccm

2007-04-27T17:02:00.000-07:00

this post is gonna be epic.

april marauders

2007-04-22T16:19:00.000-07:00

the theme was north side dive bars, though we only went to two bars aside from the hb. and we didn't even have enough time to drink at the second one! what kind of lame-ass bouncer doesn't tell you last call has already happened when you're trying to enter the bar?

outside of said bar, my u-lock got stuck while it was locking BOTH my bicycles (milligan was using pierre, and i had sancho). which was pretty scary.

more later.

march mass

2007-03-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

by now, i've realized that the thing to do is buy beverages downtown or along the ride, instead of hauling things up from hyde park. so with a little research, i found myself selecting some 6-packs at warehouse liquors on 634 south wabash. all four in my basket made my brief ride to daley plaza a little tipsy, but not in the way you're thinking. not yet, at least.

so i'm lane-splitting up dearborn, and just as i pull up to the light at washington i see a bike cop to my right. "hey, is one of those for me?" he asks. "maybe if you ask nicely!" i reply. the light changes, and i pedal onto the plaza.

some UofC friends were hanging out on the southeast side (i know, what else is new?), so i joined them. i offered beer to xerocrats who were passing out maps of the route and invitations to an "up in smoke" fish cookout on montrose beach in the following week or two. one guy, perhaps todd gee, suggested i at least make a half-assed attempt to cover my basket's contents. "don't make it easy for them," he said. i had some spare clothing in case the ride home got too cold, so i threw a shirt over the cargo. i also put two of the 6-packs in my bag, so my bike would want to tip over less often.

some police officers were not thrilled with us riding around in their district, so they decided to tail the mass with their sirens blaring. i suppose the reason for this was to hurry us along, not to deafen us, but the latter was definitely the only of the goals they attained. whenever i, say, stopped to give someone a drink, i'd find myself suddenly near the rear, then i would sprint up a bit to avoid later ringing headaches.

i was pretty annoyed, but howard later pointed out on the listserve that their presence had a positive: everyone was avoiding the back, which kept the mass's ass end nice and tight. just how we like it.

seriously. it's unsafe otherwise. the last block or two of the group will typically be quite spread out, which is dangerous because drivers may see a brief gap in cyclists and take the first opportunity to blow through a group that's held them up for a couple minutes. i've seen drivers do this too many times to count; it seems to be the maneuver of choice, in fact, especially when the car doesn't actually have enough room to do it safely.

there are a few ways to avoid this. corkers, physically stopping cars from driving into the mass by standing in front of them, are a huge help. most are wise enough to yell "close the gap!" to approaching riders, who are sometimes wise enough to heed them by speeding up. sometimes corkers rejoin the mass when they see the end is near, though, and groups who are further behind can get severed. while it lasted, the, uh, gentle loving nudging from chicago's finest kept the stragglers from straggling this month, though.

so we rode our bikes, drank some beers. one purchase was this tasty-ass nut brown ale from a brewery whose name i've since forgotten. i saw leslie underneath some bridges. i saw scott, whom i met when i commented on his fuzzy purple jacket in january, and was reminded of his name thanks to some goggles he was wearing(!). a road behind a grocery store brought joy and sorrow: some rat patrol kids dumpster-dove bagels and threw them to other massers, but tracks on the same street took down two bikers that i saw. biking tip: always try to cross tracks as perpendicularly as you can. if you ride along them, your wheel could get caught in a rut. this is one of the easiest ways to fall off your bicycle.

we almost-but-not-quite went out to navy pier. we snaked between cars on michigan (though i have since learned that this is a Very Bad Thing to do). also on michigan was a not-entirely-legal incident with a billboard truck, brought up by t.c. in the post-script of an e-mail...

P.S. I have never approved of vandalism or property
damage-- even to the truly deserving-- on a CCM ride,
but I'll admit what happened to that billboard truck
at Oak and Michigan was hilarious.

after howard asked what happened, i sent my recounting of it to the ccm listserve. many knickers were subsequently tied in twists about the vandalism issue...

though i was slightly ahead of the action*, a friend later relayed it to me.

if you're not familiar with those obnoxious billboard trucks, you need
to know that there is a door on the back. it's a small door, but large
enough for someone to get inside. some clown** tested the door handle,
and lo and behold, it was unlocked! he opened the door to reveal a
space of light, which he insists was pretty despite the trucks' ugly
function***.

the "dreadlocked wookie" mentioned earlier was not the tagger, but he
was the one who stuck his head inside the open door and turned off the
lights that illuminated the ads on either side of the vehicle. shortly
after the lights were off, someone else tagged the billboards.
although, honestly, there were lots of kids with dreads on that ride,
and the the tagger might have also had them.

lauren

*whoops on weaving through traffic, my bad! i know to stop next time,
so as not to thin out the mass.
**this is a Hint.
***if you could call it that.

at some point in the ride, i noticed igor ahead of me and took the opportunity to grab his ass. "you're the third person who's done that to me," he said. seems steph and leslie had beaten me to the punch. thankfully, i was able to control the urge to push them off their bicycles.

we poked around chinatown before eventually going back to the loop, ending outside a bio-burlesque show on 742 north lasalle. one turn and a half-block later, i fell. i hit a patch of clumsy in the open, obstacle-free road, and i just went splat on my left side. recycling spilled from my basket, but a handful of friends were nearby and helped me collect myself -- igor, katherine, steph, and some others, including "john the generic," yet another marauder whose name i often forget. (earlier in the mass i tried to guess his name, remembering at least that it was a generic guy name. i started with dave and dan, but he told me it was john before i got further. i've since decided that all the marauders should have "the something" appended to their name, to follow in jimmie the saint's example. i could be lauren the shiny, for example.)

i headed south with the aforementioned hyde parkers, but they went for mexican while i went to a party in bridgeport.

the end?

february mass

2007-02-23T15:55:00.000-08:00

i wore wings, as i did in december. drank a giant white russian, just like december again.

we ended at the mercury cafe at 15something w. chicago. there was an bicycle art show! all the cool kids had pieces up.

much more coming.

january mass

2007-01-26T15:52:00.000-08:00

this was the polka ride. we went FAR away. i drank pacifico. mmm.

this ride was also covered by noyes magazine in spring 2007. it can be found around the uchicago campus; if you pick up a copy, you can see me hugging pierre! it's grand.

obviously more will come.

december mass

2006-12-30T15:49:00.000-08:00

ended at the north street beach, with a makeshift bonfire. afterward, went to the handlebar with frank, fred, justin, todd allen, i want to say malinda, and a few others. frank gave me and fred a ride home; his car's bike rack fits exactly 3 bikes.

more to come.

november mass

2006-11-24T15:43:00.000-08:00

i met frank and john and tallbike travis, and went with them to a post-mass leftover-eating party at the hub, a co-op full of bicycle aficionados out west, near california and 23rd.
more when you're older.

october mass

2006-10-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

w00t! JtS and i had super-stealthy cell phone communication to help keep this ride together. and this time, we made it to montrose beach! afterward i went to alice's, a vegetarian place so far north it's almost in evanston, with igor and cone and some massers we'd just met. more later, of course.

october marauders ride

2006-10-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

...despite the rain, it was pretty awesome. we had four: sarah, jimmiethesaint, me, and the dude with curly dark hair whose name always escapes me. i'll think of it, i promise. and i'll also write about this route, which was truncated but recycled for october's ccm!

meet-up mass

2006-10-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

this was totally some good times. i first met howard, who bought me a beer. i also met jimmy the saint, which was the beginning of beautiful (and still-going!) participation with the midnight marauders. i met a guy whose legs were smoother than mine (wtf shaving). elaboration to come.

september mass

2006-09-30T15:17:00.001-07:00

forthcoming, granted i can pick its memory apart from the others.

post-evanston post

2006-09-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

today i rode the farthest i have to date: 44 miles, to evanston and back. i'm (co-)head copy editor for the maroon, and we've been working on the o-issue (i.e., the one that comes out for the first-years' orientation week). there are only two copy editors in chicago for the summer, though another, liz, is in evanston. we wanted as many eyes on the pages as possible, so i biked up with some pages for liz to look at. i have plans to fetch them on saturday, when i might cheat and take the el for part of the trip.

so. sore. but proud of myself.

when i got back to hyde park, i went to igor's for leftover liver and onions. i'd never had it before, but it was surprisingly tasty. also good for me, they say. after a shower and some food i was pretty sure i wouldn't want to touch my bike again for another week or so. when it was discovered that the monks of cool were out of milk, though, i totally went out to get some.

the things i'll do for a white russian.

august mass

2006-08-26T15:08:00.000-07:00

so, i'd been planning to get blue streak (EDIT: you know, that failed blog. sigh.) up and running before july's critical mass, when i had planned on painting the url on my back to get some exposure (ha). i didn't have a functioning blog in july, though, or even in august. i am, however, a step closer to doing this in september, as i finally got body paint on thursday.

it was the day before august's mass. i had been temping in uptown, so belmont—where i heard i could get good body paint—was on my ride home. i was looking for something bright and sweat-proof, and i was sent to taboo tabou. they'd recently discontinued it, but suggested i try the alley. no luck there, but the salesperson i talked to suggested violet, a sex shop on halsted. there i found latex body paint. it sounded like it would stay put but be hella hot, plus the colors weren't that pretty, so i tried my luck at two nearby sex shops the cashier recommended. one had chocolate body paint plus a three-pack of not-so-good colors; neither ideal for my purposes. the other, batteries not included, had two 4-packs of body fingerpaints; one with glow-in-the-dark paint, one with bright fruity colors. i purchased the latter and immediately put some of the blue—blueberry, mmm—on my arm to test how sweat-proof it was.

before i go on, a note about what i was wearing. i'd been taking buses to work, changing after work, and biking home. my biking outfit consisted of the coolest clothes i had access to, which meant boxers, a bikini top, and (for the first part of the ride, before i got too hot and decided to take it off) some "negative spousal interaction apparel." negative spousal interaction apparel is, of course, a nice way of saying "wife-beater." i have a few of these as a result of my involvement with the Federation of Independent Scavhunt Teams (the F.I.S.T.), my scav hunt team of choice. so please, when you picture me wandering all over boystown and visiting every sex shop on halsted, picture me doing it while wearing men's underwear and a tank top proclaiming "FIST."

so riding home. down the lake path a bit, i realized that i probably sweat more on my back than on my deltoids—especially considering that the latter gets a sweet breeze—and thus should probably test some paint on my back, too. so just south of north, where those chess boards are, i stopped and asked a couple to write on my back.

the answer to the "is it sweatproof?" question, as i discovered back in hyde park, was a resounding "no." still, though, i was determined to use myself as a billboard, and at alii's suggestion i decided to hairspray the paint once it was applied. the test would be the next day's critical mass.

this was my third mass, and the first one i biked to alone. igor was out of town, so i borrowed his speakers (and bicycle, too! the advantage of superstar is that i can ride it hands-free, which makes groovin'-while-pedaling somewhat more possible). on my way down, though, i ran into slight difficulties. my bag was folded beneath the speakers, and the two items were bungeed to the bike's rack. not very well, though; a horrible noise let me know that the speakers had fallen. they, along with two 6-volt lantern batteries, had been attached to a wooden base, but after the fall the epoxy that was holding the speakers failed. i asked a passing pedestrian where the nearest walgreen's was, and though he didn't know, a passing motorist directed me to one a few blocks away on state. yaaay for helpful drivers!

i bought (what else?) a roll of duct tape and went about reattaching the speakers. a fellow cyclist was unlocking his bike and asked if i was on my way to critical mass. "of course!" i said, before admitting that i'd lost my bearings and asking if daley plaza was northwest of us. it was, as it turns out, though the fellow said we could just ride over together. we introduced ourselves (though i forget his name) and chit-chatted; i asked him what i should write on my back. he said he couldn't suggest much besides some expletives for cars. i'd been thinking of "fuck cars, let's bike," and my conversation with him cemented this desire.

over in daley plaza, i leaned superstar against a trash can (a downside of superstar: no kickstand) and did more duct taping to ensure the speakers' security. two nearby guys noticed the speakers and asked what music i had. after explaining that, in fact, i had *no* music, but would as soon as my friend (katherine!) biked up from hyde park with her mp3 player, i asked if they would mind, you know, fingerpainting on my back with some body paint and then spraying me with hairspray.

and that is how "FUCK CARS" came to be written in (cherry!) red above my bikini strap and "LET'S BIKE" appeared in (blueberry!) blue beneath it. i made sure they put an apostrophe in "let's," because as a copy editor, i would have been mortified to have a misuse of punctuation on my back. the horror!

if you, dear reader, happen to be looking for a quick way to befriend a bunch of cyclists, well, consider getting "fuck cars, let's bike" written on your back. it worked for me! i saw my two painters a bit into the ride and put on some phish at their request. "man, i could marry this girl," said the guy who'd painted in red to the guy who'd done the blue. "a little phish, a little body paint..."

marriage proposals aside, i also got some props for my musical selections, ranging from sufjan stevens to radiohead to the faint. since the speakers are kind of old and decrepit, though, bass-heavy music didn't sound the best. and that's too bad, because bass-heavy is often how i like my music. and i talked to some kids who'd just done bike and build, which made me want to do the program next summer even more.

my attire drew some attention as well, though likely not as much as that nearly-topless chick, who can be seen in this video. i've seen this cyclist at another ride this summer, where she was wearing paisties and not much else. this ride, she approached me while we were in daley plaza, in fact, and asked if i wanted to do the mass in paisties. "uh... not really" was my reply, since paisties don't provide the amount of, um, support that i've come to expect from biking clothes. for this ride, though, she was without paisties; wearing nothing but a thong and some temporary tattoos on her nips. i've gotta respect that; she's got more balls--albeit less boobs--than i do.

i can only imagine the things that were yelled at her. myself, i got a holler of "take it off!" from some asshat, and "woo! critical mass! i wish i was your bra!" from another guy. i won't call the second an asshat because his comment at least made me smile. though, really, it's disappointing when a 20- or 30-something male can't tell the difference between a bra and a bikini top.

a while into the ride, i realized i hadn't seen katherine in a long while. so i stopped at some street to look for her. before too long, a car had pulled up behind me and massers started thanking me for corking. gee, folks, it was really nothing. but you're welcome! by the time katherine rolled up, there were quite a few cars behind me, many of them angrily honking their horns. we decided to stay put until the last bikers had safely passed. our rejoining at the tail end of the mass came with a problem, though: a few blocks up, we happened upon about a dozen bikers who were stopped and didn't know which way everyone had gone. we had lost the mass!

we found it again, though i'm still not quite sure how. it involved lawrence avenue, that's for sure, and also some guys who had a copy of the route map. the mass ended at a beach whose name i forget (foster?). the paint had lasted for the most part, and i rolled around in the grass to remove it from my back, then katherine and i had tasty things like granola bars before biking south.

on the way back, we stopped by the 31st street beach, which has a pier that's great for jumping off of, as we discovered when july's critical mass ended there. in july, though, i did not jump into the lake because the ladder one must climb to get back onto the pier has very narrow rungs. which would not have been fun with a broken foot. i decided my foot could handle it in august, though, and i finally jumped in. wheee!

the great pub cycle

2006-08-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

for my 21st birthday, which fell conveniently on a saturday, two friends and i biked north and bar-hopped our way south. we didn't have time to visit all the bars i'd intended to see, but we got a late start and took our sweet sweet time. according to my notes we made it to 7. below is a list of what i had and where (or what *we* had in the case of the hopleaf; we split those drinks between the three of us).
chicago brauhaus: bitburger
4 moon: amber lager
duffy's: hacker-pschorr
map room: wurzburger hofbrau
weed's: tecate
hopleaf: delerium tremens, lindeman's pomme, mead
and of course, the dark from the billy goat.

who carded and who didn't? where was i sung "happy birthday"? in front of which (motorcycle) biker bar did i gracefully fall off my bicycle?

these stories and more to come.

summer (bike) lovin'

2006-06-30T14:45:00.000-07:00

in which i will eventually share brief tales from june and july 2006.