summer cycling: the fourth 50 miles

many longer rides on this one....

there was the end of the L.A.T.E. ride (aka the best part)

there was the first ride I did at home with my dad (aka the day i almost died....darn you HILLS!)

and there was ride number 2 with my dad (aka i love trails along rivers.....rivers dont go uphill)

birthday....KC style

this year i'm working on prolonging the birthday as long as possible.....

• super early presents with my family memorial day weekend...check

• early presents with claires...check

• bday presents with nickface on actual bday...check

• late bday presents with bro and sis-in-law and rest of fam...check

• late and super delish bday cake...check plus.

yep a 2 month celebration should just about do it.

signs of old age

in high school my friend lindsey and I went to concerts on a regular basis. hours of standing, loud music blaring into our ears, waiting in line afterwards to get our CDs signed.

then there was that one fateful day when we excitedly waited in line to see a Jackopierce concert. Who is Jackopierce you might ask...and rightfully so. according to wikipedia they are an "american alternative rock band formed by Jack O'Neill and Cary Pierce in Dallas, Texas in 1988. Their style is focused around vocal harmonies and acoustic guitars" yes formed in 1988, the year I turned 4. They broke up in 1997, and released the equivalent of a greatest hits CD in 1998 celebrating nearly a decade of music. in other words....an old-people-music-snob band that I LOVED. (well LOVE since the opening notes of any of their songs still brings a smile to my face)

we entered the beaumont club, a cowboy-dance club which would double as a standing room only concert venue for all my favorite alternative rock bands (check my CD collection....they've nearly all played at beaumont) and were stunned to see chairs. rows of chairs filling the space where we normally stood on sore feet. chairs...humm.....apparently this is what old people concerts are like......I could definitely get used to this.

since then I've strived to find seats at concert venues...I dont need to be front row...my feet like to sit, or perch on stools overlooking the concert floor. we took this up one notch however when we went to see Swell Season. Lawn seats at Ravinia...aka picnic blanket, picnic feast, and laying down listening to music. (note to self...pillows next time) Done and Done. I'm sold concerts should be attended in reclined position.

2 days later we went to see Tonic, another old person band, people here however had not gotten the memo about chairs. my feet hurt. I was bored. I wanted my picnic blanket. I even thought 'perhaps I'm too old for this'. the next night we were back. free sister hazel concert. I was ready for hurt feet and tired legs. then they started playing. and I was happy and dancing. Perhaps I'm not that old yet after all.

L.A.T.E. ride 2010

despite my best efforts I could never find out what the L, A, T, and E stood for in the friends of the park L.A.T.E. Ride, but now after completing it despite my best efforts to enjoy it I'm pretty sure it stands for Lame, Annoying, Thoroughly Elbow-to-Elbow Ride.

we started with the best of intentions....psyched on the el, crowding the car with our bikes and not understanding why people didnt feel compelled to go through the OTHER set of doors when we were clearly in the way.

pictures from this when CLAIRES finally posts her pics.

we navigated through the crowds when we arrived and found an empty-ish spot to decorate our bikes, our helmets, and ourselves for our adventure.

we stood in the massive group of people waiting to start, mentally preparing for the crowd that would be at the beginning of the ride....something like 2000 people starting a ride at one time when there were already 2000 in front of them and another 5000 behind....this was going packed...but we assumed this would spread out eventually....right? (we could only hope)

WRONG.

three miles in and probably a half hour later we were still elbow-to-elbow attempting to ride down the road. by this point we'd probably passed the 10 pile bike pile up with was reportedly bloody. by this point I'd also probably had to tell the people who stopped in the middle of the road waiting for their friends who got stuck at the red light and who hadn't mastered the idea of inertia and how they'd need some time to start their bikes, leaving me to nearly run into them that they need to watch before they pull out in front of people.

12.5 miles in and an hour and 45 min after the start, after watching a cyclist (who was on the wrong side of the road and ran a stop sign) get hit by a car and then proceed to yell at the car driver about how he was riding his bike, we reached the rest stop, where we hoped for our $45 there would be some water and nourishment. WRONG again. there was mint water (GROSS), bananas, and some life savers. the cliff bars were apparently gone...the people in front of us must have taken more than one...WHAT there were 7000 people behind us...DONT RUN OUT OF FOOD. DON'T SERVE ME GROSS WATER WHEN I NEED TO BE HYDRATED.

the last half of the ride was better. along the lake in the dark, where I'd try to pass swerving people hoping I didnt have to swerve myself and end up in the lake. but at least there was the delish all I could eat pancake breakfast waiting for me when I finished and for split seconds I got to just ride.

Delish pancake breakfast I paid $7 extra for...this should be good.

WRONG AGAIN!

pancakes were good...but that was all there was. nothing to drink (REALLY are they TRYING for me to pass out from dehydration????), no fruit, no protein, and then we had to stand in line again to get the with-ride breakfast....they couldnt have brought some of those bags down? At least we're still smilin' because if there's any one we like to have times with (not good times or bad times, just times) it's each other.

we were supposed to stay for the sunrise. it was 4 am. the sun rose at 5:30. our arms hurt (not our legs because we gripped the brakes more than we peddled). our butts hurt (because it took us about an hour longer than any 25 mile ride should take and we weren't prepared). our tummies and heads hurt (because we had no more water after finishing our own). and so we lugged our bikes back to the el.

nick and I did catch the sunrise in evanston.

and we weren't the only ones who bailed on the ride and came up to watch it closer to home.

in summary:

Summer Cycling....The third 50 miles

this 50 miles went by much faster....

there were some trail rides where we literally rode around the world...from our home here in chicago and back.

then there were some beach trips with polka dot suits and laying out in the shade

and there was the start of our LATE ride with our glow in the dark bikes....expect a post on that tomorrow.

Summer Cycling....the second 50 miles

the next 50 miles took a little longer to complete than the first 50....life got busy, and it got HOT. HOT and RAINY. but this is what it looked like....

a few trail rides....this time I took pics...of nick and tanks...

and of our dead bikes after tank attacks.

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we rode for a HUGE but gross breakfast (I did not wait an hour for my puffy oven pancake for it to be a hunk of charcoal)

minus 5 to breakfast. and having to eat only the middle.

but at least claires and I had matching pips!

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and our bikes went on a great adventure to the campground.

where they were ridden to the beach and to a winery.

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and the 50 miles wrapped up with fireworks.

flash flood watch: my bedroom

reason number 557 why we are counting down the days till the end of the year.

when it rains our bedroom floods.

all the rain from the roof falls on our window

which floods the window well EVEN with the storm windows closed.

and since the inside wall is lower than the outside wall, the water enters the room.

it's supposed to rain tonight....here's hoping those sounds that sounded like steps on the roof were in fact steps on the roof, and drains being unclogged. if not Im going to have to invest in more towels.

birthday 26!

progression of the day (and the afternoon before)....

July 1st presents with claires...FLOWER HEAD! and pretty dress

6:00 am wake up to stupid alarm. nick jumps awake. I hit the snooze. wake 15 min later to the smells of breakfast...french toast and berries galore!

6: 30 am morning presents...the ones from my family. coffee from mom and dad, cricut cartridge from my grandma and grandpa, a cross from Italy and BUNNY SLIPPERS from my little sis.

7:30 am off to work...gross...but at least nickface came with me....to play king pattern. meet the king and queen.

3:45 pm cake with the birthday twins at work.

5:30 pm more presents! cricut toys, everwood, saved by the bell, bike water bottle holder, and FISH PANTS!

6:30 pm leave to go downtown for dinner get there early so take some river pics

9:00 finish up dinner take some pics

9:30 head to rock bottom for free dessert and raspberry wheat beer and topping off the evening with free pint glasses. yea! 5 visits to rock bottom.

backlog of blogs

it has been a whirlwind last week and a half....lots of things going on, which translates to lots of things to blog about, which translates to not a lot of time to blog, which translates to a backlog of blogs. and so...the last week and a half in pictures (mostly)

first we went camping which gave me a chance to use my headlamp for real, provided opportunities for general store photo opps, included delicious malt-o-meal breakfasts, included a bonfire, a trip to the beach on bike, a trip to wine tasting on bike, lots of watermelon, a return trip to the beach in car, the chance to use the hatchet I always fear falling on my head, and the opportunity to mangle a can with a swiss army knife (apparently it was someone's cruel joke to offer us this when we asked to borrow a can opener), then loaded the bikes back on the bunny, and headed home where we got stuck in pride parade diverted traffic.

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Then there was camp invention. where on day two in pattern kingdom the kids played with bubbles because the provided curriculum sucked....who wants to measure lines of masking tape at summer camp?...bubble day was also crazy hat day. on the last day of camp king pattern came to visit the kingdom, and he turned in to king pattern-zilla at the end of the day

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and then we went to the taste where we feasted on crazy potato chips (I want to try this with an apple peeler corer slicer) and chicago dogs (fabulously crispy dogs), barbecued turkey legs (delish as always...though if they injected the bbq sauce it would have been even better), crab cake nuggets (yum...crab, though I prefer my crab cakes unbreaded) , cajun meatballs (spicy...but good), sweet potato hashbrowns (would have been better if they were crispy), jerk chicken (translation: mouth on fire chicken) and hibiscus tea sorbet (hands down my favorite thing I ate), and chocolate dipped frozen cheesecake squares (100 % YUM...we even had 2 since the mobs wouldnt let us to our fried dough). the night ended with pictures and head kisses after giving up on ever making it though the mobs on the street, granted, we barely managed to get out minutes before stabbings and riots.

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and then there was the 4th of july (preceded of course by my birthday but we can afford another post for that!)....when we spent the day being lumps...then rode bikes to the evanston fireworks