Tag: fundraiser

Nov 22 2014 November 22, 2014 August 13, 2016 NoComment by bikeleptic

Event Recap – 2nd Annual Cranksgiving

Posted in ,

Last year I helped my friends Laura and Tom organize this cool event I had never heard of called Cranksgiving. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a scavenger hunt that happens in cities across the nation where groups of cyclists gather food items for a non-profit.

Here in Portland, our non-profit for the second year running is Outside In. Their organization works with homeless and at-risk youth. We think that it’s a fucking tragedy that kids go hungry in this country, so we are doing our part to ensure that some pretty cool kids can have an awesome Thanksgiving. Not to mention Dave’s Killer Bread upped their donation from last year and ensued some gluteny goodness all freaking year long for these kids.

I got an email a few weeks ago from Tom saying that he would love to having me back again with my donation barrel. I jumped on the opportunity and borrowed a barrel from work. The agency that I work for supports over 9000 men and women a year in many different capacities. We have a day center which participants can get showers, clothing, toiletries, haircuts, nursing services, TB tests and much more. We also have two short-term residential facilities for men and one for women where a person experiencing homelessness can stay for up to 4 months while working with a housing case manager, attending classes, workshops and work with someone like me; a life skills coordinator who helps them with employment, volunteer and education opportunities while they address their barriers to housing.

I kinda went rogue and while representing the agency, I wasn’t technically on company time or anything. But it’s about professionalism and all that shit. So, smiles and stats and best practices! And with that I was able to take away 2.5 bags of coats, hats and gloves which some folks are going to be stoked to have this winter! So thanks everyone!

So I found myself at Cranksgiving with over 100 riders (making up 31 teams)! It was pretty awesome to say the least. I got to hand out flyers about our women’s shelter and network with a lot of really cool cats regarding donation opportunities.

2pm hits and the race is ready to go. The weather had been raining off and on throughout the day, and from what I heard in the warmth of Velocult was that the riders got caught in some torrential downpour. I drank two pots of hot herbal tea.

It was difficult to move in the venue with everyone crammed in there all costumed up, many having brought their bikes in with them. I’m really glad the fire marshal didn’t show up. It was kind of spectacular. Though, I wasn’t involved with the registration process, it seemed as if it went pretty smoothly from where I was stationed with my barrel. Because I had some notion of what was going on, I was able to direct those that needed assistance to where they needed to go, so that was cool. . . and probably helpful.

While we unfortunately didn’t get anyone join us this year, there were five different “Today Show” teams that joined 5 of the 70+ rides happening across the US and they did a segment on the history and what it’s all about. So that was freaking cool. You can view it here.

 Here is the full report from Puddlecycle laying out all the epic details and stats. What I do have to say is that the riders brought back almost $1900 in food and supplies. That’s about $400 more than last year! (basic math for the win!)

It all happened so fast, I couldn’t get a non-blurry photo of “Team Wish Upon a Bone”

The first team back made it in less than 1 hour. Seriously, it was like 50 minutes. These dudes were flying. I have no idea how they made it about 12 miles in that amount of time. I’m winded even lifting my bike off the storage hook. And it was rainy, remember. I ride slow in the rain. I tucker down and grit my teeth. But they just sucked it up and flew.

Quickly behind them was Team “Muscles with Brussels.” They were scrambling in the backdoor within minutes. Many members of this team were on the old cyclocross racing team, Team Slow – but they were showing their swiftness with that kind of finish.

There was so much selflessness that happened today. While the entry fee was $10 a person, which went directly to the purchase of food, teams went above and beyond. Bikes for Humanity PDX even donated 9 bikes and 9 mechanic courses valued at $1800 total. Rock on!

So many amazing people made this event happen. I’m not going to attempt to name all of them, but this is about half of them. There you go!

I hope everyone had an absolutely amazing Cranksgiving and that they have a fabulous Thanksgiving. If you need help thinking of things to donate to your local homeless shelter, you can check out my guide.


Tags:

Nov 26 2013 November 26, 2013 November 26, 2013 NoComment by bikeleptic

Event: Cranksgiving Recap

Posted in , ,

This Saturday was a really long day for me. I just had my VNS surgery the day before and I went in to work later that day – but I still managed to have the energy and work through the neck and chest pain and wrangle cyclists for the fundraiser event. Needless to say, after I got done working at the bike park that night I was exhausted and in a lot of pain. I slept really well that night.

But anyway, the event!

I helped organize Cranksgiving Portland with three bikey friends. This is an international deal that happens in almost two dozen cities world-wide. You can check out if it happened where you live. Basically we held a bike rally and a fundraiser. We picked a charity to be our benefactor. That part of the event was kind of my forte.

We decided on Outside In. They help at-risk youth and homeless youth. They help with mental health, drug/alcohol, tattoo removal, job skills, case management, etc. All the proceeds from the event (food, donations, money etc) will be going to that stellar organization.

halbucketI also set up a donation barrel for Transition Projects. They offers many services from having a day center for homeless, engagement staff, access case managers,  transitional residential programs and more. I ended up collecting FOUR huge garbage bags full of hats, gloves and jackets for them. If you do live in Portland, you can continue making donations to Transition Projects. Please refer to their wishlist and my previous entry.

We ended up with 96 people on 23 teams returning back with over $1500 of food!

That’s freaking amazing.

In addition to that, Dave’s Killer Bread donated 100 loaves of bread to Outside In. We had some amazing sponsors that donated prizes to the teams. It was great fun had by all.

Major props to Laura Recker, Tom McTighe and Zed Bailey. We were all able to pool together our unique strengths and come up with a really interesting and fantastic fundraiser. I am super impressed with all the amazing donations we were able to raise as well as what we were able to collaborate in such a short time. It really shows dedication.

BikePortland wrote about it here.

Tom wrote about it on PuddleCycle here.

Added 10/29: Write-up by Team S&M + Panda – Also a Youtube Video by one of their GoPro Clad Riders!!

 

Video by Zed Bailey


Tags:

Sep 12 2013 September 12, 2013 August 4, 2016 NoComment by bikeleptic

Ride Report: Pedaling For The Pasture Century

Posted in , ,

After 45 days of obsessively promoting the ride, it finally happened. With the amazing donations from the community we have raised $1255 for Out to Pasture Animal Sanctuary (and are still accepting donations until September 15th!)

You can read my official ride report on Pedaling for the Pasture blog.

What about me? In a typical BIKELEPTIC fashion, I had a seizure the Wednesday before the ride.

Classy.

It was just a partial complex seizure, so nothing serious. You know, “just” a yada yada. . .

Anyway, I took my seizure meds and after a couple hours was still in that postictal haze. Took some more meds and a few hours later took some more. Needless to say I didn’t go to work that day. That evening, feeling a distinct pinch in my brain and slightly, well here’s the key phrase – off kilter – I finally decided it was a good idea to go to the ER. I hate going to the ER because they don’t do anything. Sure enough, several hours and a few hundred dollars later, I returned home, feeling more nauseous and migrainey – and with no resolution. Thursday was a little better but still groggy.

Friday ended with Brad and I printing off the cue sheets and waivers far into the evening. I had a laundry list of tasks to complete, which strangely enough for once did not include laundry. I wanted to swap out my stem (because I am always doing smart things to my bike and/or gear the day before a long ride. I also bought new fingerless gloves and a fucking cap to wear on an 80 degree day), put on my bottle cages, clean up my chain, do a quick tune up, etc.

You know, things that I shouldn’t have left until the night before. Things that I should know as someone who has been riding a bike for more than a couple days should know, but well. . . yeah. I’m a busy person and when I made that New Year’s Goal back in February to be more organized, my time management skills immediately went to shit.

At least I didn’t make the goal to bike more or I’d be dead by now.

So I got to bed a bit after midnight, setting my clock for O’Dark:30 in the morning and blearily allowed myself to get maybe five hours of sleep.

Hah.

Crack of dawn later, I was up, kitted up – embrocation slathered on my knees, because despite the 80 degree forecast for the day, in a typical Northwest fashion it was barely in the 60s that morning. Grabbed my food, tools, helmet, gear – change of clothes for afterwards and threw it all in grocery bag and loaded up the bike in the car.

Say what?

Yeah. I wanted to be fresh for my 100 miles so instead of a 5 mile warm up, I got a drive over.

I’m that kind of person.

I also wanted to be there a few minutes early to the couple’s house that were hosting the breakfast since I was, you know. . . organizing the ride.

Mark and Shannon had prepared an amazing breakfast spread. It was like a TV family sitcom breakfast. Like hotel continental. My “I never get to do fancy things” side is showing, but it was really nice of them to provide so many delicious choices for us. Soy AND almond yoghurts, gluten-free rolls and ciabatta bread, gluten-free oatmeal, a variety of fruits, tea, coffee, juice. The list goes on. It was pretty spectacular. They are pretty stellar people. Not only did they host breakfast, we started the ride from their home and it happened to be the perfect location in relation to where I wanted to make the first checkpoint, so it was as if it was meant to be.

Turns out that I have met Mark before on a ride this last winter. Also turns out that he had sent me an e-mail on behalf of a team that I regret not joining up with (even though I love my current team – it’s just my work schedule isn’t lining up), so there was that sheepish moment of recognition.

Even more so when the realization set in that of the six people total involved with the event on this fine Saturday, September 7th, three of them were members of Monkeywrench Bicycle Club and the other three were Flahute Racing p/b Trailhead Coffee Roasters. It was completely accidental because everyone had signed up completely independently (except Mark and Shannon of course) so it kind of amused me. Only thing that would have been better is if we had all been team kitted up.

Josh, whom I met last summer and then found out that we had signed up for the Sanctuary Century independently of each other last year signed up for my ride this year. He showed up with his fixed gear. Last year I thought he was a badass for riding THAT ride on a fixie. And that route was flat.

My route was decidedly not flat.

In fact, MapMyRide says that there is 2822′ worth of elevation gain. I will admit there was one hill (the suburban development right before we got to the animal sanctuary) that I walked up. I’m no here. There was another hill that I didn’t walk, but I did stop several times. It just never ended. I walked down to the bottom of a hill, albeit I had a flat rear tube and was having some wicked fork flop, so I don’t think that counts.

If you are interested in the route that we took, here it is.

There were glitches, as to be expected.

I wanted to show up at Kelley Point, ride out to the beach and take a photo. Simple, right? Well, as we approached there was a lines of cars and people standing around in sarongs in a haze of smoke. I was to find out a couple days later that “Hempstalk” was happening at that exact moment, vaporizing my plans.

So we rode on through.

What we missed out with stoned Portlanders, however, we made up with by visiting the brand new boat dock on Marine Drive. They had Dyson bladeless fans.

So classy.

It was around there that we said good-bye to the bicycle portion of the ride for Lisa. She was our car support. Also, she fractured her spine in June at the Rainier Road Race and hasn’t hit her 3 month mark yet. She wanted to ride a little with us, so decided to do Kelley Point Park and then make her way back to the car.

As someone who has also broken their back, I wasn’t doing shit at three months. I was eating cereal from the box and watching Psych on cable.

Just saying.

There might be a reason I weighed 70 lbs more then than I do now.

Regardless, she was a rockstar. Lisa showed up at the 50 mile mark on the sidewalk to flag us down with coconut water. She showed up at a ballpark in a really random place on the Springwater Corridor with jugs of water to top off our bottles. When we missed connecting with her at the top of Women’s Forum, she brought us our lunch on the side of the road, next to the Sandy River.

And then there was Chris. Not only did he ride from his home across town to the breakfast spot, but then when were at a reststop in Troutdale, he casually said that he was going to shoot ahead of us and then loop back. He ended up looping an extra 20 miles there, grand totalling at the end over 130 miles. I don’t blame him. He just upgraded his bike, which he worked really hard to do and has been busting ass out on the course this year.

I was humbled.

There were a lot of things that I could have done differently. There were half as many people this year and the people that were riding with me were strong cyclists. When you have that concentration mixed with the fact that I have been doing (hah) no training this year, was off my bike for most of the month of June, and have been having on-going health issues, I don’t just have to be strong – I have to be stronger – for me.

Of course, I was also the one to get the flat. Last year, several people got flats, but this year it was just me. I couldn’t find the leak to just do a quick patch and tried to just put co2 in it.

That’s stupid.

Don’t do that. Just change the tube in the first place and don’t waste time. Before I even realized I had the flat, I thought it was me. I thought that I was failing, energy-wise. I was giving myself all this negative feedback about how I should have done this better and how I couldn’t understand why when I had done all my nutrition-storing right I was crashing so badly – how it felt like I was pedaling through mud and my fork was shaking so badly. . . oh yeah. Shit. Huh.

We ended with pizza that I purchased from Portobello Trattoria. Purchased, with a little help from my friend Emily, who gave me a “get well” gift certificate after my appendectomy. I don’t think that was the original purpose of the gift certificate, but you know what? It went to feeding a group of starving cyclists, so it was the best purpose!

You can still donate until September 15, 2013!


Tags:

Jul 27 2013 July 27, 2013 August 4, 2016 NoComment by bikeleptic

Event: Pedaling for the Pasture Ride

Posted in ,

(As a side note, this is my 50th post! Wooh! Confetti!) Remember last September when I participated in my very first organized century? It was a pretty epic experience. I was so stoked about it that I wanted to do it again. The riders, volunteers and supporters raised over $26k for three very deserving animal sanctuaries.

Pretty stellar, right?

I contacted the organizers this year with much anticipation only to find that they were taking a break this year. Crestfallen, I realized that the animal sanctuaries can’t take a break as well.

My ambitions aren’t nearly as high as $20k. I am seeking to raise $1000 for Out to Pasture Sanctuary, a local (Estacada, OR) animal rescue and no-kill sanctuary that partner with many other organizations to ensure that animals are treated with kindness and compassion.

Regardless if I meet my goal, I intend to ride on Saturday, September 7th. $1000, I will ride 100 miles. Anything less, I will ride the equivalent. You can donate directly here.

Interested in participating/riding/sponsoring?

• If anyone would like to ride with me, I am asking that they contact me for more details.
bikeleptic@outlook.com
• Riders are asked to raise/donate $40 to the fund.
• I am planning on riding 40 miles minimum (if funding is meh.) If there is a lot of participation interest, a reformat to a “real” century may be in order!

Please “Like” the Facebook Page for more details and to stay up to date!


Tags:

Sep 18 2012 September 18, 2012 August 4, 2016 NoComment by bikeleptic

Ride Report – Sanctuary Century

Posted in ,

Before I delve into the amazing energy of experiencing my first century, I would like to talk to you a moment about how much I hate physical exercise.

During our most tender years, we are brought up with forced manual labor in the guise of physical education.

Humiliating.

This is really the building blocks of “am I going to come into work one day and go postal or not” as far as sculpting our psyches.

During junior high my class would alternate between a 2 mile run and a 20 minute run every week. It was really apples and oranges to me since the 2 mile took approximately the same amount of time. I recall standing on the sideline coughing up blood and having the PE couch tell me that I wasn’t trying hard enough.

That was about the time my mother pulled me out of traditional classes and I home schooled PE. After all, in the scheme of things, it’s just 45 minutes of babysitting during a period of school where instead of getting hit by dodge balls you could learn something useful like calculus or jazz choir.

So, for my entire overweight childhood the idea of anything that reeked of exercise totally makes me feel like I am getting punished.

Seriously Pavlovian.

Don’t get me wrong. Through my school career I have been on the baseball team, volleyball, basketball – bowling. I have been fencing for 10 years now as an adult, did dressage, Polynesian dance and Turkish belly dance… but these things are fun. You can forget that you’re doing crunches, push-ups – or the Presidential Fitness Test. That’s what I love about bicycling. I can ride my bike all freaking day and I don’t feel like I am doing any actual exercise.

Yeah, well. I never pushed it hard for nine hours straight apparently.

Yesterday I exercised.

And it hurt good.

So, we will start Thursday. Went on the pre-ride on Wednesday. I ended up going home early from work Thursday night with a migraine and feeling all loopy. Long story short, no seizure, but I did feel like shit on Thursday. The problem with my absence seizures though is that they were originally misdiagnosed when I was younger as both hypoglycemia and diabetic shock because the way that I act is similar.

Well, and I have hypoglycemia.

Haha. I’m a fucking mess.

I ate a ton of food Thursday night.

I slept.

I felt better.

Friday I went and bought new shoes. (2011 Specialized Riata MTB)

Because you know, nothing’s smartah than wearing new shoes when you’re planning on riding a long bike ride THE NEXT FUCKING DAY. Actually the two pairs of clipless that I own are both touring shoes are so pretty soft soled. When I was riding on Wednesday my feet hurt pretty bad, so I figured it couldn’t be worse, right? Right!?

I also bought a new helmet. I have two helmets already. One is a more skateboard-style which I use more in the winter for cross. Absolutely no ventilation. Toasty warm. The other was a freebie. Heavy. Not much draft. Super ugly. Helmets are ugly to begin with. This is not a political blog. I am not going to get into the politics or bureaucracy of bicycle helmets. My blog isn’t about changing people’s minds. It’s about telling a story. If something sparks your interest, so be it. Regardless, the occasion arises where I attend an officially sanctioned event or I go to a place that requires helmets, and I realize that I would like to have a nice one. I got a Giro Savant. In matte black. It matches my shoes. I really wanted one of those that are feather-light and have like 50 vent holes and you can barely see them for how amazingly compact they are, but I don’t have $300 to drop for something I’m going to wear a dozen times a year. I didn’t really have the money for this.

It’s pretty though.

I look damn good in it.

Oh yeah.

I went on this century ride with 11 other awesome people.

I got to the starting point just before 7:30am. I didn’t trust myself to actually get there on time and be able to make breakfast, get my gear and everything together in the morning, so I ended up sleeping over at a friend’s house and had them drive me to the start-up. They also made me breakfast so I could sleep until the very last second. Well. . . I still ended up waking up at 6:15 or so. Had to eat some oatmeal and braid my hair. Give myself time to digest. Drink some juice. Slather myself with embrocation cream. It’s freaking cold in the Pacific Northwest in September in the morning!

Priorities.

I get there and everyone is lingering around getting ready themselves grazing on the spread of fruits and snacks. All those last minute bits. We sign all our insurance forms. We get all our emergency phone numbers and everything set up. All that good stuff.

Then we go outside.

Did I mention it’s freaking cold?

Other than the blithingly frigid chill, we were all in grand spirits to get the ride started. It ended up being a gorgeous day and the weather warmed up forthwith! We started the morning by leaving Portland and heading for a loop around Sauvie Island. Then hit up Vancouver, WA by way of I-5.

Lunch Break Instagram Tweet: “Progress report. Mile 52. My girl-junk hurts.”

We stopped for lunch at Frenchman’s Bar in Vancouver, WA. I am disappointed to report that there were neither French men nor bars there. However, weird and creepy: my ex-boyfriend was there on his tandem with a gal!

I mean, I don’t care.

Maybe they knew someone on the ride and they came to cheer us all on. I highly doubt it was a coincidence that they were there randomly. But they weren’t interacting with the group at all. They were just sitting in the same picnic area kind of off to the side all creeperish.

Don’t know what the motivation behind that was. Especially since I have been signed up to do this ride since June. Didn’t throw me off. Because you know what? I was wearing adorable kit and I felt like a fucking rockstar.

Still do.

So, we left the lunch site and I was pretty much ready to go to bed. But oh yeah, we had like, you know – 50 more miles to ride.

So there was that.

Left Vancouver via 205 bridge. Headed up Marine Drive to Gresham, OR. Got on the Spring Water Corridor. Road all of it. Which was fantastic. There is a portion that hasn’t actually been completed yet, so we got to have a little “cyclocross” portion of our century and dismount, climb over some water pipes and rubble, etc.

I got a little turned around in Sellwood when the trail ended abruptly but a guy on the bike gave me directions through town and I got back on the trail. I figured it out on the cue sheet, but it was just easier for me to ask directions than it was to sort through the four pages I had on my handlebar bag to see what page I was actually on. Up until then I had been so close to the front group at various points that I hadn’t needed to look at it at all.

So back on the Spring Water, I knew where I was. You take that back into town. At this point, I even vaguely knew how many miles I had left. At one point I passed a team mate fixing a flat. (Just so you know, I asked every time I saw someone stopped if they needed assistance. That’s just common decency.) Then I spat on them and raced by spraying rocks in their face.

But seriously. By the Spring Water my feet hurt. My right hip hurt, which has never happened before, but I think I was favoring it because my left knee was aching and I was compensating. My feet were killing me and I could barely put one foot in front of the other. Old people on cruiser bikes with baskets and mirrors were passing me I was going so slow.

I wanted to shout out: “I’ve been pedaling for 8+ hours! I’ve gone 90 miles! I’m usually not this shitty and slow!“

It would have been ridiculous to bail out five miles to the end point. I also have a rule when it comes to races and events. I will not be last and I will not DNF. (‘Did Not Finish’) Even though this wasn’t a race, but a good-natured charity ride, there’s still a competitive streak in me. I knew which riders were ahead of me. I knew who was behind me.

So, when I arrived back to the end point a few minutes at 5pm alone, but mid-pack, I felt pretty damn good.

9 hours.

12 riders.

100 miles.

As I type this, we’ve raised $26,344!

Hell yeah.

 


Tags:

Sep 13 2012 September 13, 2012 February 28, 2016 4Comments by bikeleptic

Wednesday Morning Pre-Ride

Posted in ,

Coming up this Saturday is the Sanctuary Century! I am getting pretty stoked about it. (There is still time to donate, by the way. Just remember to reference my name or the website in your comments.) I’ve wrapped my bars, got a new chain and tune-up, cleaned up all the crumpled scrapped up stickers on the frame. Really made that 1985 Panasonic look good.

Sigh.

Have I mentioned the half-step friction shifting in previous entries?

Or the fact that I have a very specific freewheel that they don’t make anymore. A Shimano 11-34T Megarange. In fact, when my ex-boyfriend found a stash of these at a shop, he bought up every last one of them he could find and had been sparingly using them on builds in his shop for customers. He has one on his bike, gave one to me. . . these are like the golden unicorns of freewheels.

If you want to get a little nerdy, you can read what Sheldon Brown has to say about it. (Shimano does make a similar model, the 14-34T Megarange that I don’t believe is discontinued, FYI.)

My ex-boyfriend said that if he ever saw me riding around in 52×11 gearing, he would take the freewheel away.

I think there might be a reason why last October I had quadricep patellar tendonitis.

I digress.

I went to put the Ortlieb handlebar bag on the bike, which I have mentioned before, and I had yet another hitch in my plans. There is a metal sleeve where the quill attaches that is too wide and I had to mod the bracket so that everything would butt up without gaps. Then, to make the bracket attach to the bike, you have to lash it on with cable. Because of my weak shoulder, it was excruciating. For serious. It took about an hour to even get the thing tight enough where I felt comfortable putting things in the bag. It’s still not super tight, but you know.

Meh.

Moving on.

So, I had the opportunity to go on a ride Wednesday morning with a couple of people participating in the fundraiser. We did almost half of the route, which means almost 50 miles. It was a gorgeous day, blue skies, about 80 degrees. As someone that mainly stays in Portland proper, it was really fun and interesting for me to get outside of the city. We went over to Vancouver, through Fort Vancouver, across the 205 bridge, up Marine Drive to Troutdale and by then I was feeling my blood sugar crashing as I didn’t really have any food with me so we ended up just bombing down from Burnside. There was the Springwater trail involved in there somewhere.

Trying to figure out where we are. Hopefully not a precursor to Saturday’s ride.

I’ve only been to Vancouver, WA a couple times by bike. It’s not really my favorite place to go. Because of their helmet laws, we have jokes here, such as “don’t forget your Vancouver Passport,” when traveling across state lines by bike. There’s sales tax there, where there is none here in Oregon. There’s much more of a social presence here in Portland where it is much more suburban there. People will say “Vantucky,” things like that.  A friend of mine even mentioned a couple days ago that he bumped into some Canadian tourists from British Columbia and when they were mentioning where they were from, they said, “Vancouver, the Canadian one.” And they were really adamant that they had to specify because they had heard that people around here didn’t particularly like close-by one.

Hah.

So leaving Fort Vancouver, which I wish we had time to stay and hang out, but this was not a social visit, we didn’t really get lost, but kind of sort of didn’t know what road we were on, so took a moment to adjust our bearings. Lisa rode ahead to check road signs and Josh and I checked our GPS on our smart phones.

My phone put use next to an airport. I never saw the airport. I saw a boat trailer yard.

So there was a lot of headwind. We could get lucky and it could be blowing the opposite direction.

My bike is ridiculously too small for me. I really don’t know what to do about it, but my back is killing me today as I write this. So, I got this road bike from a dude in my first apartment when I moved to Portland. I was moving out of the apartment and the bike had been sitting on its rims in the bike room the entire time that I had lived there. I asked the property manager if she could contact the owner (based on the serial number that I had pulled from it) and ask him if I could buy it off of him. Which I did, for $40. It’s a great little steel lugged frame. 48cm seat tube. 27″ wheels.

Classic. (Which is synonymous with heavy.) 

I have already been trying to sell my single-speed cyclocross bike, and my single-speed commuter bike so I can get a lighter weight one.

It might be time to upgrade 1985 Panasonics as well. Sometimes lugged steel isn’t forevah.


Tags:

Sep 07 2012 September 7, 2012 February 28, 2016 NoComment by bikeleptic

Bike Commute Challenge

Posted in ,

September. Just saying the word brings me all sorts of happy feelings. The nostalgic thoughts of back to school. Leaves are beginning to change. Autumn is on its way.

An autumn tradition that I have begun for the few years since moving to Portland is the Bike Commute Challenge put on by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. For the entire month of September you and your co-workers log all your commutes by bike at the website and then at the end of the month the BTA has a party and hands out awards to different companies and organizations based on different tiers. My organization never wins anything. But it is interesting to log my hours. This year, a few days before September 1st, I was already becoming excited as the day before my birthday, but no staff e-mails had been sent out. I logged in to my account, updated all my info for the new year and realized that our team captain was leaving the company. Dropped her and e-mail. Sent out a rousing staff e-mail reminding everyone to sign up for the challenge if they handn’t already.

And that’s how I became the new team captain for our Bike Commute Challenge.

Yay?

I actually think it’s pretty spectacular, especially since I should be doing long training rides before work for my upcoming century next week, which I could maybe, possibly log as “commutes.”

Think there is a gray area there, but I am going to do it regardless.

We never win anything anyway.

Speaking of centuries. The Sanctuary Century is happening on September 15th and you still have time to donate to the cause! (Just make sure to reference me by name or the website, BIKELEPTIC, in the comments!) I need to get to the goal of $250 to ride in the durned thing!


Tags:

Sep 01 2012 September 1, 2012 February 28, 2016 NoComment by bikeleptic

Preparing for My First Century

Posted in ,

Everyone talks about their “first.”

I don’t know why I haven’t done one yet. Last summer my ex-boyfriend and I were going to coastal trip on a back-to-back tandem and we had anticipated to do all the 90 miles or so in a single day, but due to a late start in the morning, some brake issues and my not being in the best of shape, we made it about halfway on the first day, camped and did the rest. Needless to say, I’ve done lots of 50 -60 mile trips.

We also got distracted by deep fried mushrooms and french fries in Gaston, OR.

So, I got wind of this charity event coming up on September 15th.

The Sanctuary Century is a 100 mile (century) bike ride fundraiser in Portland, Oregon to benefit Out To Pasture Farm Sanctuary, Hope Animal Sanctuary, and Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest.

2012 marks our 4th year for this event and this year’s ride is scheduled for Saturday, September 15.

Please join us on the ride or make a donation and help us reach (or even better, exceed) our goal of $20,000.

Please like our Facebook page to stay updated on ride info.

It’s charity. I really like what they’re trying to raise money for. I really would love it if you could donate any amount of money to help them reach their goal. However, if you’re going to donate to them, what would be super awesome is if you could mention your lovely twitchy author, either by name or by website. As one of the official riders of the event, we’re asked to raise $250 each.

We also just got a matching donor, but we have to reach at least 10k, so help us by donating! (And don’t forget to put my name or BIKELEPTIC in the comments!)

So, some things to know about this ride.

It’s super flat! Like, holy crap it’s flat!

Here, see for yourself.

I’m pretty thrilled about this. Having to hill climb for a hundred miles wasn’t sounding like a great day plan to me. Cruising along eating jelly beans and listening to my music on a relatively flat route sounds like I won’t even notice the miles roll by.

I signed up for this back in July, so have been anticipating it for a while, but like everything in life (at least my life) am kind of waiting until the last second to do anything about it.

The ride is unsupported.

For all you people that are not as “bikey” that means that there isn’t going to be stations along the way handing out Clif bars and water bottles for us thirsty riders. I have to haul my own tools and all of that.

The joke is in all of this, of course is that since this is a vegan bike ride and all the riders (I presume) are vegan, and we’re supposed to not get enough protein and be malnourished, you’ll be able to find the route by following the path of passed out cyclists.

This is fallacy of course. Vegan food is awesome and choke-full of protein and supah-healthy for you. The stupid thing about saying “vegan food” is by definition it just means “no animal products,” so all the scoffers, apparently don’t like grapes, fries or Oreo cookies. Even Oriental flavored Top Ramen lacks animal products. Of course, I have totally avoided the “supah-healthy” aspect I was supposed to sell you on.

Fuck that. I’m no vegan messiah today. (To be honest with you, I can’t even eat half of the four things I named. Sat WHEAT!? Yeah.)

So for the next two weeks, I have to switch into training mode. Cleaning up and tuning the bike for the ride. Asking people for donations. (It’s on the honor system, so I’m trying not to be religiously pushy.) Eating differently. That’s right. Eating so that I am becoming a more energy efficient machine.

I invested in an Ortlieb handlebar bag recently. It will be “handy” in the future for touring regardless. (Oh, come on. That’s hilarious!) And the coordinating smaller waterproof cue sheet that snaps on top.

Hell, I even have new bar tape to make my bike look all nice and pretty. (I have lots of scarring and chewed up gouges from falls over the last year. I’m going to play it safe and not going to wrap my bars until right before the ride so they still look good.)

I forgot to mention the training rides. We get so wrapped up and excited details we forget about the important stuff. I’ll be powering through a lot of training rides before work to get ready and stretch my legs.


Tags: