But first, I want to thank everyone who donated to this cause. You were all very generous and I really appreciate the support. If you didn’t get a chance to donate before the ride, it’s not too late. I won’t be submitting the donation to the charity for another week or so, so you definitely still have time to put some money toward the cause. Click the “About” tab above for more info on the charity and for a link to donate.

Anyway, click below for a long-winded explanation of what the hell I was talking about in the first paragraph…

Um, yeah… I rode more than 100 miles yesterday. I don’t know exactly how many miles, because my odometer fell off somewhere around mile 81, but I rode at a pretty good pace for another two hours after the odometer fell off, so I definitely rode more than 100 miles. The trouble is, my 100+ mile ride didn’t end at the Transportation Alternatives official finish line, but rather at a subway stop in the middle of the Bronx.

My crash and Eliz’s tire problems delayed me for a few hours, so by the last leg of the ride (miles 80-100), I was in the final group of about 5 or so 100-mile riders (Eliz went home after 80 miles, so I was by myself). The final group of riders was going pretty slow and, thanks to the rush of adrenaline from being spit out onto 1st Ave. in an unprotected lane, I was riding much faster than they were. After about 10 minutes I’d completely lost sight of them behind me. In retrospect, this was a bad move…

An even worse move, however, was TransAlt’s decision to mark the route in difficult-to-read, tiny, green spray-painted letters on the pavement. A lot of the time they just re-used route markers from previous years, so the paint was faded and even harder to read. Have you ever tried to read 7-inch high, faded green letters on a dark background at dusk while riding 20mph? If you haven’t, don’t bother… you can’t do it. The entire day was plagued with poorly-marked turns, and the pack Eliz and I were riding in got lost and had to turn around numerous times throughout the day. When I say poorly-marked, I don’t mean just “hard to see.” There were multiple intersections where the geniuses painting the route would put the direction arrow AFTER the intersection. This happened at a couple of forks in the road/path, as well. There would also be arrows painted in the crosswalk of the intersection, but nothing prior to that. When you’re riding with the flow of traffic at 15-20mph, an arrow two feet from the intersection doesn’t give you nearly enough warning whether or not you’re about to make a hard turn or keep going straight. Seriously, look at this shit:

(note: in case you can’t see–and I don’t blame you if you can’t– that third photo says “CAUTION” to indicate that there’s a tire-killing bump in the pavement… two feet away. Thanks guys!)

So there I was, riding through the Bronx, when I realized I hadn’t seen a green arrow in a few blocks. Earlier, in the top of Manhattan, there had been a stretch where there wasn’t a route arrow for about 10 blocks, so I figured maybe they were just conserving paint or something equally stupid. Nope. I went back to retrace my route, but it was dark and I didn’t remember what street I’d last turned from since I was just following an arrow and not reading street signs. I couldn’t find the route again, so I ended up just riding around some really cool greenways in the Bronx for about 90 minutes or so before riding over to the 6 train and taking it back to Brooklyn. If you’ve never ridden a shiny chrome bike by yourself around the projects in the Bronx at night while wearing tight spandex with a ripped-open ass cheek, you haven’t lived.

So thanks to poor route markings, I ended up not making it to the finish line to collect my commemorative t-shirt. Pretty much every rider I spoke to yesterday complained about the markings as well, and said they’d been lost at least once during the day. I’m totally going to write TransAlt an angry, Grandpa Simpson-esque email complaining about it. “Dear TransAlt, I kept getting lost because of your terrible route markings. Let me tell you about my day yesterday. I was wearing an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time…”

Anyway, aside from the unexpected detour and the various delays, I thought the ride went really well. I wasn’t sore when I woke up this morning, other than the giant bruise on my hip… no muscle fatigue or stiffness. I found it interesting how my body reacted to the distance. Your legs can just pump up and down forever as long as you stay hydrated and eat food, but you really start to feel the miles in your wrists, shoulders, feet, back, and groin/butt.

I don’t think that I’ll be doing the NY Century next year, but I definitely want to continue doing long distance rides. The problem with the NY Century is that a lot of it is on the streets, so there’s a ton of stopping/starting at intersections, riding over bumps and potholes, looking (usually in vain) for route markings on the pavement, etc. If we’d ridden yesterday entirely on greenways or highways, I probably could have done 120 miles without a problem. Next year, while I might do a long-distance ride for charity again, it’ll probably just be a ride I organize on my own, maybe NYC to Philadelphia or something.

Below are some of the phone-cam photos I took yesterday. Click the thumbnails to go to my Flickr photoset.

Love,

Jim

So my leg is all gauzed up, which is pretty fun. Photos to come post-ride. I’m at the mile 15 rest stop now, waiting for Eliz to get her tire fixed. Going really well so far (road rash on hip notwithstanding), looking forward to the remaining 85 (hopefully crash-free) miles. More updates to come…

POST-RACE PHOTO UPDATE (warning: gratuitous nudity below)

If you have already donated, I seriously can’t thank you enough. Everyone’s generosity has been tremendous.  I’m still holding out hope for a few stragglers to make some last-minute donations, and I also want to make sure all the e-checks through PayPal have cleared, so I’m going to wait a week or so after the ride before I make the lump-sum donation to FINCA.

I hope to do at least a couple of in-race posts tomorrow from my phone, but we’ll see how that goes. I’m off to sleep, I have to be up in 5 hours to head up to central park to start this absurdly-long bike adventure. Thanks again to everyone, especially those who wished me luck on the ride… I’ll need it.

- Jim

I did a pretty solid bit of riding over the labor day weekend, with a 42-mile ride into the Palisades Park in New Jersey–a forest area along the bank of the Hudson–and a couple of quick 10-mile rides. I felt totally fine on the 42-mile ride, which had some steep climbs and was a lot more technical than the 100-mile ride will be (there are, not surprisingly, more hills in coastal New Jersey than there are in Manhattan). Toward the end of the ride I felt like I could have kept going forever, which is good because come Sunday I’ll have to do a 42-mile ride, another 42-mile ride, and a 16-mile ride. I think as long as I do at least some riding every day between now and the ride, everything should be fine. It’s not a time trial or anything, so it’s not like I’ll be killing myself out there.

Below are a few pics that Eliz took during the ride, including a pretty awesome shot of the George Washington Bridge. She’ll be doing the 100 miles with me and should have some good photos from the ride, as well.

Midway through the 42-mile ride. The dude at the diner asked if I was on the now-defunct Discovery team… sadly, I am not (though coincidentally, I now work at the Discovery Channel).

Doing my best to reverse any health benefits gained from the 42 miles of riding by stuffing my face with fried diner food. Mmmmmm… delicious cholesterol. Also, doing my best to avoid laughing hysterically at the looks I was getting from confused elderly people, who now probably think the new trend in youth fashion is dressing in tight spandex clothing covered with sponsor logos.

30-second exposure, shot from under the GW bridge on the Manhattan side. Yup, Eliz knows what she’s doing. Click here to check out her site.

The training is going pretty well so far, I did another short training ride over the weekend along the Brooklyn coastline, just shy of 22 miles roundtrip. It wasn’t difficult at all, which is a good sign I think. Sometime over the next few days I’m going to do a 40- or 50-mile ride just to see how it goes, but I’m confident it won’t be too much trouble. The goal is to work up to a 75-mile ride the weekend before the NYC Century, followed by at least 15-20 miles per day during that final week… I figure 175+ miles of riding in that final week should be more than enough to prep for a 100-mile ride (*fingers crossed*)

In other, unrelated cycling news, the Discovery team– former team of Lance Armstrong– has disbanded… sad news for cycling fans, especially given how dominant Discovery was in this year’s Tour (Tour winner Alberto Contador and third-place finisher Levi Leipheimer were both Discovery riders, and Discovery won the Best Overall Team competition). Good thing I bought my Discovery jersey before they stopped making them…

I hadn’t ridden a bike in the 3+ weeks since my wheel got stolen, so I was expecting to be pretty far out of riding shape, but it was nowhere near as bad as I’d feared. I was able to maintain a reasonably hard cadence for most of the ride, except for a few areas along the bike path where every toddler in the entire city was stumbling around chasing balloons and I had to slow down. Stopped a few times for a brief water break, but overall I wasn’t super fatigued and could easily have pushed it to 40 or maybe 50 miles without too much trouble (100 is another story, but I’ve got plenty of time to work up to that).

Thanks again to those who have donated, the total is now $800. To check out what impact $800 will have, check out the donation calculator. And if you haven’t donated yet but would like to, please do so here:

Thanks again to all who have donated so far, the donation total now stands at $740. If you haven’t donated yet but would like to, please go here:

But I’ll have a new rear wheel soon and can resume riding, and still have more than a month to prep for the ride.

Huge thanks to those who have donated already, I’ve raised $110 just from donations this afternoon/evening. If you haven’t donated yet, please do so here:

On a related note, my friend Omar is training to run a marathon in Chicago to raise money for the fight against Leukemia, Lymphoma, and other blood cancers. It’s also a great cause, and you can donate here.