Monthly Archives: August 2013

Braking AIDS Ride in 150 Seconds

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One of the questions I get most frequently about the Braking AIDS Ride is about why I keep going back for more. I mean, let’s face it. Biking nearly 300 miles in three days, rain or shine, sound like… well, it sounds like lunacy.

That three-day lunacy every September also means that beginning every March and April, most of my weekends are all about training. Not brunch. Not going out. Not staying in bed with my devoted wife, who loves me and this cause enough to let me make her a bike widow for four to six months every year. Not snuggling with my dog. Not seeing friends. Not reading. Not writing. 

Have I mentioned no brunch?

Every weekend, each time I cycle up the long Alpine hill at the northern end of Palisades Park, I keep hoping that a brunch feast like this will be waiting for me when I get to the crest and then roll into at the rangers' station. I've been riding that hill for years now. Where are my damn poached eggs?

Every weekend, each time I cycle up the long Alpine hill at the northern end of Palisades Park, I keep hoping that a brunch feast like this will be waiting for me when I reach the crest and then roll into at the rangers’ station. I’ve been riding that hill for years now. Where are my damn poached eggs?

I’ve written many a wordy post articulating the numerous reasons I am thrilled to participate in this cause and on behalf of Housing Works and this ride, despite the lack of poached eggs available on River Road in Palisades Park. Words are my strongest medium, but I have a great appreciation for the visual as well. The fine folks at Black Watch Productions, who have been participating in and documenting the ride on film every year since its inception, have managed to capture the spirit of the ride in 150 seconds. This is why I keep going back:

For those of you looking for my Hollywood close-up, I don’t appear in the fine bit of footage above, but I do make a few cameos in a slightly longer segment that appears on my Braking Aids Ride donation page. My heroic partner’s amazing efforts as a ride crew member are well-documented in that video as well, beginning around Minute 5; fashionable as ever in her adorable stripey hat, she’s one of the angels literally pushing and running alongside bikers who are trying to claw their way up Mount Archer, the toughest hill on the route. As for me, at 5:40, I prove, in case anyone doubted it, that I’m incapable of climbing Mount Archer without an expletive or two, and The Blue Streak and I, back by popular demand, show up again to wave at the Black Watch folks, on decidedly flatter ground, at 7:26. For those of you dying to see me in spandex, this is your chance.

[INSERT SHAMELESS SELF-SERVING PLUG: Yes, there’s still time to donate! After you’ve enjoyed the donation page video antics, while you’re there, why not make a ride donation to support Housing Works and its amazing work to fight AIDS/HIV? As of this writing, I’ve raised $6,400, 64% of my $10,000 goal, and I need your help to make the remaining 36%. Donate, donate again, and please share the link to this blog and to my donation page (http://bit.ly/ZGvJZl) with your friends, your family, your colleagues!]

And to those of you who’ve donated already, I can’t ever thank you enough. I think of your support, your kindness, and your encouragement with every single pedal stroke on the road.

Women on Bikes! Getting My August Training-Ride Bearings

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The summer has zipped by in rather frightening fashion. It’s only two months until Braking AIDS Ride 2013 begins, which means I need to put in some back-to-back long training rides this weekend.

Bearings, for sale here, Charles A. Cox, c. 1890. Courtesty of Posters: Artists Posters Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Bearings, for sale here, Charles A. Cox, c. 1890. Courtesy of Posters: Artist Posters Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

In my fantasy version of doing back-to-back training rides, a fantasy that tends to dominate my foggy, exhausted thinking at 6:00am on Saturday morning when I’d rather remain in bed, the weather will be as beautiful and mild as it’s been most of this week, the wind will be at my back, the hills will feel like flats, the flats will feel like downhills, and the downhill cruises will feel like heaven on earth. In that imaginative rewrite of my training days, it feels as though the leg power of five other women are powering me and my bike, and the riding is such a piece of cake to us, we’re all reading fashion magazines as we cycle. (For anyone who’s asking, in the illustrated rendition of this fantasy above, I’m the raven-haired woman in front of the blonde caboose rider.)

In reality, it’ll be me, by myself, pedaling on my own steam, trying as best I can to push myself but also live into whatever my body can do that day and whatever the road brings me. What’s nicer about the reality version: Nothing feels better than the moments when I work hard and it pays off. Sure, it would be easier if the roads all felt flat, but then, so would my mood. The highs are that much sweeter when they are hard-won. So, whatever comes these next weeks, bring it on.

On the other hand, while I can forgo the other five women helping me pedal, but if anyone knows where I can get those amazing, red knee-high cycling socks, please contact me ASAP.

To support me and my invisible tandem-bike harem to support Housing Works and fight AIDS, you can still donate here!  I’m at 54% of my $10,000 goal, a sum that’s been achieved, to my amazement, in only a month. So, I’m more than halfway there, and the rest, I hear, is, well, at least partially downhill. Donate early and often!