I Challenge Myself is on a Roll (Literally and Figuratively)

For those of you who have followed my biking adventures (and, if you're reading these words, that probably includes you!), you'll recall that much of my fundraising is channeled to supporting I Challenge Myself, the non-profit of which I've been Board Chair for almost 10 years. So I thought a report on their recent (and amazing) progress was in order.

First, on June 8th, the kids at ICM biked their annual Century Ride (100 miles), basically from Upper Manhattan to Carmel, NY, along the various Westchester bike paths, and back again. The picture at left was taken after the ride -- they don't look much the worse for wear! In fact, we had to pull them off the field behind them, where they were running around and playing Frisbee, in order to take the photo!

I rode with them again this year, and it was again an inspiring experience. The kids were playful, but careful and polite riders, and really looked after and supported each other on the ride. They also were pretty darn strong in the saddle. This year, we also also had more volunteers than ever -- supporting all aspects of the ride, from meal and snack set-ups, to driving sag wagons, to riding along with and encouraging the kids. It was a long day for everyone, but the kids really did a great job, and I'm not exaggerating to say that all the adults came away impressed with the whole undertaking and, I think, re-invigorated themselves by the good use of their donated time.

Second, a smaller subset of riders took off in late July on a multi-day summer bike tour program, covering almost 400 miles, of seven colleges in Upstate New York: Syracuse, Cornell, Binghamton, Oneonta, Cobleskill, Bard and West Point. Each visit included a guided campus tour and meetings with financial aid and admissions counselors. I just recently met with the kids, and the bonding, enthusiasm and excitement they all showed, having completed a challenge of this size, was extraordinarily heart-warming and inspiring. Please check out their Facebook page for some amazing coverage of this adventure! And if you can't be bothered with clicking the link, here are some photos for you without leaving this very page!

Last, but certainly not least, through the dogged determination of our Executive Director, Ana Reyes – ICM earlier this year received a 3 year Carol White PEP Grant, which is a US. Dept. of Education federal grant, worth over half a million dollars! It means we will be vastly expanding our program, including hiring additional staff, to reach more kids through a cross-fitness program that we hope will become a standard for physical education across all of New York City's public high schools. We'll still maintain our Cycling Smarts program and its Century Ride, as well as the College Summer Bike Tour, but this additional program will, we hope, be a way to get entire schools involved in challenging themselves!

Now I've never quite figured out whether getting a grant of this size positively or negatively impacts prior financial supporters. One reaction might be: "they've got a lot of money now -- they don't need my $50." The other (and the one we hope for) is: "wow, they're really taking it to a new level -- I want to be associated with this organization and support it more than ever!" Seriously, though, the grant does have an obligation to raise some matching funds that means that continued support from our best and earliest donors continues to be needed and much appreciated. End of pitch.

More posts coming soon about my upcoming Climate Ride Midwest ride -- which will be in support of both Climate Ride and I Challenge Myself. I hope you'll follow along.

Day 4: Quite a Workout!

Phew. Today was an 80 mile race against the clock. The timing was driven by having speakers scheduled at the Sacramento State Capitol at 3:30 with everything working backwards from there. So the organizers wanted us to have breakfast at six and break camp and be on the road by 6:30. Right.

Yours truly thinks he did pretty well by getting on the road by 7:15. But it did put a premium on keeping pace, so my photo taking suffered and, in fact, was in complete abeyance until the end of the day when we reach the capital.

Oh, and did I mention that there was a Category 2 climb 5 miles into the route? (Category 2 being the next to hardest climb out of the five categories, measured on a combination of duration and gradient.) About 1200 feet of ascent over the course of 3.6 miles. Ouch. (Take a look at the profile below). I usually give myself the goal of trying to make such climbs without taking any breaks on the way up, but that thought was quickly abandoned in this instance (For the record, ahem, I'm going to blame my lack of a granny gear). Three "breaks" later I was at the top, switched to a dry shirt (essential) and enjoyed a fantastic almost six mile long descent. So it wasn't a bad trade off.

And it was a great scenery day for the first half of the day. Going through rolling valleys and lush fields. It just had to be taken in while whizzing by, without a whole lot of stops. It can be liberating in a way, not to think about photos, and instead just focus on riding and riding hard, but, on the whole, I prefer a day like yesterday, where I could dawdle freely and liberally (and, yes, sample some fine wines).

The last half of the ride was less interesting, as we headed into Sacramento itself (there is actually a bike path that abuts route 80 going against traffic - efficient, but not particularly endearing). And frustrating, as we blew through Davis, the biking capital of the world in certain ways, with barely a glimpse. I would have happily stopped there and spent the night!

I'm writing this entry as we sit in a park in Sacramento waiting for the bus to come and take us back to San Francisco. It's been a fun journey - again! - and I thank you both for coming along with me on the ride and for your support.

Yours, from the road, until next time,

Roger

And, of course, here is today's route and metrics (and a smattering of photos from the end)

Napa Valley is OK!

Today was a really fun day. The weather was perfect, the route was a little bit shorter and more forgiving, and, importantly, there were a boatload of Napa Valley vineyards along the way.

So this blog entry will be short, because I sampled a lot of them!

Today's route and a sampling of pictures:

A Hard, but Excellent, Day 2

Today was a hard, but pretty gorgeous day. It didn't start off too auspiciously. Due to some type of mix up with the caterer, there was no coffee delivered to camp in the morning. Instead, what appeared was some sort of pre-sweetened cappuccino, which is sort of like mainlining sugar (I drink my coffee without any). Fortunately, someone found a single half-empty jar of Folgers crystals, which at least managed to get me to the first coffee shop on our route.

Speaking of which, the route was pretty enchanting, taking us through first the Russian River Valley and then the Alexander Valley, both wine meccas of California. The rub was that we didn't have time to stop at any of the vineyards except for one that was pre-arranged to accept 150 bicyclists in sweaty spandex and cleated bike shoes:  Moshin Vineyards. Fortunately, their Pinot Noir and Zinfandel were pretty good and were fine accompaniments to dinner.

The route was also pretty challenging, and included more than 3500 feet of total ascent. But the challenge was well balanced by beautiful roads with canopies of trees and little traffic, as well as unbelievably perfect weather: sunny and in the 70's (although marred in spots by pretty strong headwinds).

The biggest climbs were left for the last 15 miles of the day, which was pretty intimidating when we were told this in the morning, but when I actually got to them, I found I had a pretty good reservoir of energy left and it was very rewarding to pound through and up them and reach the summit. And yes, I did pass my fair share of other riders! Some of them were even younger! (Competitive, moi?)

And then there was a very pleasant surprise at the end the day. We had been told that we were staying in cabins, which based on past experience on Climate Ride, I fully expected to be in the, shall we say, "rustic" category. Wrong. Luxurious in every sense, with individual showers (no lines, no waiting!), clean sinks and toilets (no....well, you know) and actual power outlets (no trekking to the communal charging station).

So a very good end to a challenging, but invigorating day. And did I mention that I just got a 30 minute message from the three masseurs who travel for the week with Climate Ride? Not as good a bargain is it used to be (each 15 minutes session is $25), but still well worth it!

And what would the day's blog entry be without the route metrics and some photos?

Lovely Day 1

Notwithstanding my significant reservoir of biking experience, I actually was a tad nervous before today's ride. I did not do a lot of training beforehand and, when I did manage to do longer rides, I was...well..exhausted. So a "mere" 250 miles over 4 days actually had me feeling a bit tentative.
And yet...There's something about being with 150 other people, all raring to go, on the West Coast, with the sun shining and the temperature in the 70's. It turned out to be a good day of riding and I handled it with relative ease, including about 3000 feet of total ascent. Tomorrow's another day of course, but today was good.
This is a new CA route for Climate Ride, and they did a really nice job of laying it out, easing us out of SF, across the Golden State bridge, through Marin (where cops eagerly wait to ticket bikers who go through red lights), into Petaluma and then, finally, into a massive KOA campground (fortunately, we had a nice secluded corner).
I don't have a lot of insights to share from today's ride, and I'm about to be one of 25 people giving 3 minute "speed" presentations about their beneficiary organizations (I Challenge Myself, in my case), so I will leave you with today's route and few select photos.
Thanks, as always, for reading.

This is what a Climate Ride break looks like.

At the Lagunitas Brewery, 2 miles before camp.

San Francisco!

OK, this trip is now officially under way. I flew from JFK to San Francisco yesterday, arriving a little after Noon, only to find myself in the midst of a heat wave the sort of which SF rarely encounters. Sunny and in the 80s. Seemed OK to this New Yorker!

I'm staying here, until the ride starts on Saturday morning, with my niece, Emily, and her spouse, Christina, and their 14 month old son, Elliott. As much as I love Emily and Christina, they know that Elliott is the main attraction. Yes, almost all babies are cute and adorable, etc., etc., but Elliott really takes the cake in my unbiased view.

I arrived somewhat jet-lagged, and also not feeling all that energetic for someone about to undertake a 250 mile bike ride. Emily and Christina helped cure that by taking us all down to the Presidio for dinner catered by about 20 different food trucks, lined up at the edge of a beautiful grassy lawn littered with families and their young children enjoying the Summer-like weather (actually, that's inaccurate -- I'm told Summer in SF is not generally like today -- it remains cool, wet and windy). There was a band playing, and the entire scene (known as "Off the Grid") was invigorating and rejuvenating. And Elliott definitely got into it:

So that was a very nice way to arrive and adjust, and take my mind a bit off the ride itself. I admit, I'm a tad nervous about my stamina and how little I have really trained! If you don't see a blog post tomorrow, it means there's an exhausted Roger flopped out in his tent!

Today, I went to pick up my rental bike and fine tune it for tomorrow. And by that I mean put on my own pedals and seat and swapped out the handlebar stem for one that is shorter and angled higher. I do the latter because I have long legs and a shorter torso, so my seat always needs to be set pretty darn high and, on road bikes, the handlebars then end up being too far away and too low. So I adjust it all as best I can.

The bike is pretty nice: a Cannondale with a carbon frame (I've never had one). I took it for about a 12 mile test run and mini-sight-seeing trip around SF, and it rode beautifully. It's much lighter and more responsive than anything I've been riding in NY. The only con is that the lowest gear on the bike is only a 34 front, 28 rear ratio, which makes me a little nervous for when we hit real hills (OK, San Francisco has real hills, but as you'll see from the route below, I managed to avoid the worst of them today). I'd rather have a 32 tooth gear in the rear, or something to make the ratio closer to 1 to 1 (i.e., one pedal stroke = one full wheel revolution). To be continued from the road, I guess....

Here's today's route, as well as a smattering of photos of and around this gorgeous coastline.

Tomorrow -- Climate Ride starts. We have about 150 riders in all, who have broken Climate Ride records by raising over $500,000 to date. Good stuff, and I'm looking forward to it! Thanks to everyone for reading and for their donations.

LaGuardia and Citi Field

Today (Saturday) was a gorgeous day and screamed out for a training ride. Even to me. The only fly in the ointment is that it probably also screamed out as well to about 99% of the Manhattan population that owns a bike. No way was I going near the Greenway or Central Park if I could help it -- they would be way too crowded. I try my best save those locales for weekdays (the benefit of having your own business and a flexible schedule).

So I fell back today on an old favorite -- Queens. Yes, Queens. Really. It's amazingly nice, with a ton of bike paths and very little vehicular traffic -- either of the self-powered or gas engine kind.

Of course you do have to get there, which involves taking the aforementioned Central Park loop down to 59th Street and then going crosstown on 58th Street to pick up the Queensborough Bridge (yes, yes, I know, it's actually the Ed Koch Bridge these days, but I'm a hold out). The Bridge has a great pedestrian/bike path, which even has been repaved since last I traversed it. And, then, once out on the Queens side, you have a wide choice of bike paths on fairly untrafficked side streets.

The paths are not the segregated kind that we're now seeing in Manhattan, mostly just the painted lines on the street kind, but I actually kind of prefer these -- primarily because pedestrians are acclimated to them and don't habitually step in front of you without looking! And, I admit, I kind of feel guilty (although I really shouldn't) about a segregated bike lane, like the relatively new one on Columbus Avenue, taking away an entire lane of traffic. If any traffic planners are reading this, how about giving us a painted bike lane up Amsterdam Avenue?

Anyway, back to the training ride. I went as far out as Citi Field......

....and then swung by LaGuardia to watch the planes take off and land. I admit, I'm kind of like a 10-year old kid in this respect -- it just never gets old to see these huge mechanical behemoths float overhead on the way to landing. You need a wind out of the North for LaGuardia to have the landing pattern that takes the planes over my route, and I was desperately hoping that would be the case -- but, alas, it was mostly ESE, so no go. So I, and you my dear readers, must make do with my video from the last time I rode this route.....

 After LaGuardia, since I don't like to retrace my steps, as it were, I came back into Manhattan (or, more accurately, Ward's Island) via the RFK Bridge (that's a name I can accept, although Triborough still escapes my lips as well), where the view is quite spectacular from the elevated bike path...

Here, as always, are the route and metrics if anyone is interested in following this path themselves. Sheesh. It's only 12 days until I fly out to California. I'd better get back on my bike!

A Short Spin across the Top of Manhattan

Well, the forecasters were pretty accurate for once, and the past three days really weren't very conducive to riding, so I'm glad I pushed myself to ride this past Monday. Which is kind of the story for today (Friday). I sort of needed a push to get going today -- which, I'm worried, is becoming a recurring theme in my training efforts.

The sad truth is that it's much more fun actually to do a ride like Climate Ride than to do the training for it. The conundrum, however, is that without at least a modicum of training, Climate Ride becomes more difficult to do and, hence, less fun. Go figure.

The push to ride today came in the form of Laura's cousin once-removed (her father's brother's daughter's son, if you must know), Greg, who lives in our building with his wife Heather and two young boys. Greg is an excellent athlete and he emailed me this morning saying he wanted to get out on his bike for his first ride of the season. How could I say no?

However, as a concession to it being his first ride and my feeling less than energetic, we kept the ride short and simply looped over the top of Manhattan, across Dyckman street, taking the West Side Greenway North, and the East Side Greenway (yes, there actually is one up there) South. But to our surprise, when we got back down to our neighborhood, we were still raring to go, so we threw in a Central Park loop for good measure.

The total was 20 miles on the day (see below), which really isn't going to do the job, training-wise. But it was fun keeping it short and sweet, so some times you just have to balance competing interests!

American Bald Eagle (Honest)

I didn't fully feel like riding today, but the weather forecast for the next three days is pretty dismal -- cold and wet -- so I thought I had better take advantage of today's relatively warm and sunny climate.

My concession was to do a fairly routine training ride -- over the George Washington bridge and then North on the so-called River Road, which has four pretty steep climbs, until you reach the Alpine Police Station about 15 miles in (excellent bathroom and water bottle refilling station!). Then I typically return along NJ's Route 9W (very nice and wide shoulder), which is flatter and much easier.

Here's the route and related stats:


The ride was a little unusual in two respects. First, the normal bike path across the George Washington Bridge (on its South side) was closed. The Port Authority does this from time to time for reasons unknown to me -- but, as far as I know, Gov. Christie has nothing to do with it. The problem is that the path on the North side is littered with stairwells that you have to lug your bike up and down -- so you actually arrive on the NJ side with slightly tired legs!

The saving grace is that the view North from the bridge, without the intervening roadway, is pretty darn nice!

The second unusual aspect is that I actually saw an American Bald Eagle! Now I don't want you to think I used my own, ahem, "eagle" eyes to spot it. There were two photographers set up on the River Road (the road that goes along the Hudson on the NJ side, up the Palisades), with cameras with huge telephoto lenses, pointed up at the trees, so of course I stopped to see what was up. And, actually, I shouldn't say "of course," since at least a half-dozen riders went by during my pause without evidencing even a whiff of curiosity (let's give them the benefit of the doubt, though, maybe they had already seen it?).

But sure enough, visible even with my naked eye (although the photographers were also kind enough to let me look through their viewfinders), was an American Bald Eagle, tending to a nest with three chicks in it (I only saw one, but accepted the photographers' assurances that there were a total of three).

My photographic evidence is below. A tad fuzzy and indistinct, I admit, but better than Apple's recent attempt to capture Nessie up at Loch Ness! (the eagle is in the upper left quadrant of the photo).

Even without a Bald Eagle, riding the River Road is a scenic fest. Here's another two photos:

The Little Red Lighthouse is visible at the base of the Bridge!

Taking a pause on the largely untraveled River Road....

And, for what it's worth, since I'm writing the post a full week later (I'm going to have to be more disciplined in California!), it was pretty much rainy and miserable for the next three days, so heading out today, even for a "mere" 30 miles, was a good call!

Some Croton Photos

So I thought my phone and new RidewithGPS program had "eaten" my photos from my training ride on April 26th from Croton Harmon, but I "discovered" them in an unexpected folder and thought I'd still share them -- if only to incent those of you in NYC who have never done this ride to give it a shot!

Croton Harmon cemetery

Dam across the Croton Reservoir (pedestrians and bikers only!)

Croton Reservoir overflow

Croton Gorge Park (picture shot looking downstream from the top of the Dam)

Westchester County bike path across the Reservoir

A Bike, a Bike, My Kingdom for a Bike

No ride today (cloudy, cold and windy), so I'll elaborate a bit on yesterday's ride -- or more specifically, the bike I chose to ride (from among the three I own). It's probably my favorite bike: a hybrid, made by Focus (a German company) with upright handlebars, fenders, reasonably wide tires (32mm), a rear rack and hydraulic disc brakes. It's mostly aluminum, but it's not a particularly light bike, so I use it more for city riding and commuting than for long distances -- but it's so much fun to ride that I can't always resist taking it out for my longer-distance training rides (and with rain yesterday a possibility that turned into a reality, fenders and disc brakes were a big benefit).

The Focus Hybrid

My alternative rides are, first, my Surly Disc Trucker, the all steel road bike I rode cross-country. It has the advantage of incredible comfort -- the steel is very forgiving on road bumps, as is the slightly longer wheelbase and wider tires (38mm). It also has drop handlebars (good for plowing through a headwind), front and rear racks (good for touring), and fenders and mechanical disc brakes (good for rain). But all this comes with a sizeable disadvantage -- it's really heavy! So I feel virtuous if I train with it, but doing so before I've built up some strength and stamina poses a larger challenge. I actually rode it a week ago, on a round trip to Nyack (taking the hilly route) and, I must admit, for the next two days my legs kinda regretted it. Here's a picture of that bike, as well as last Sunday's route.

My cross-country Surly Disc Trucker

Last, but not least, is my Cannondale R800 -- an all-aluminum road bike that, at this point, is over 10 years old. It's fast, it's light (with narrow 23mm tires and aero rims with only 16 spokes), but it's very stiff and doesn't do a great job of absorbing road shock, an increasing consideration as I get older and my back gets a bit stiffer itself. So I don't ride it all that much these days. However, I did take it for a quick spin nine days ago (30 miles up to Alpine Station in NJ and back) and was reminded how nice it is to ride such a lightweight bike. Can you handle one more picture and route?

The oldie but goodie -- Cannondale R800

So what does this all have to do with Climate Ride California, other than depicting my indecisiveness about training? Well, I also had to decide which bike to ride in California -- one of these three (and, if so, which one)?  Or, like I did last year, should I rent a bike in advance from a local shop in San Francisco that will be ready and waiting for me when I get there?

Not actually that tough a decision. The bike I rented last year was just fine, after I took some pains to fit it to me properly. This involved bringing out my own saddle and pedals and, once there, buying a stem post extender, to raise the handlebars, and a rear rack that clips to the seat post, to handle my daily cargo. But the key determinant was not having to deal with shipping a bike in either direction and/or bringing it with me on a plane. Good bike carriers are expensive and, even then, they remain a pain to lug through airports and you still risk having a baggage handler sling it around like a hammer throw and snapping off a derailleur bracket or something equally fragile. Plus you have to disassemble and reassemble your bike in each direction (to varying degrees depending on your carrier). 

I did it once, about twenty-five years ago on a tour to British Columbia, and I remember being up half the night trying to disassemble my bike and fitting it into the bike carrier, then struggling to wheel the unwieldy package through the airport, and then attempting to put the whole thing back together somewhere on a street in Banff. Ugh. The carriers are much better these days, so maybe I'll take the plunge again one day, but not quite yet.....

Training's Starting (Late as usual....)

Time to get this show on the road! So to speak. I leave for California in 19 days and my training to date has been....well....pretty non-existent. Am I taking this 4-day, 250 mile trip too lightly after cruising cross-country in 2012 for 4,000 miles over 85 days? Possibly, but I prefer to blame the crappy NYC Winter and late-coming Spring. It's been cold, blustery, rainy and snowy for a long time -- and just not very conducive overall to fun riding.

So I've done my best to stay in a modicum of shape with regular morning spin classes at the Flywheel studio on the Upper West Side. They last for 45 minutes each and give you a heck of a cardio workout -- but, in truth, I don't think they do much to prepare you for outdoor biking. What spin class really does, I think, is prepare you for....more spinning. Not a lot of translation in my experience, so far, to outdoor actual riding (although I do find spin helps with not getting winded walking up subway stairs!). Although, maybe, spinning has marginally improved my outdoor riding position -- spin instructors regularly remind you to put less weight on the handlebars and use your core muscles to stabilize and provide strength to your legs -- concepts that apply well outdoors too.

But I definitely need a bunch of outdoor actual riding time, and today's forecast looked like the best I was going do this weekend, reaching into the mid-60s and partly sunny, but marred by a steady 10 to 20 mph NW wind. Hmmm. I kind of felt like doing one of my standard rides: North on the Westchester County bike trail to Croton Harmon (about 48 miles), which is fun because I then return on the Harlem-Hudson train (yes, bikes now allowed) and avoid going over the same ground on my return. But with the wind blowing as it was, I decided to give myself a break and reverse my usual pattern -- I took the train first -- up to Croton-Harmon -- and then rode back to NYC with a generous tailwind! Not bad thinking....although not necessarily as good training as the other way around. But I'm just getting started (I hope).

If you've never done the ride, it's quite gorgeous (ask my sister-in-law, Karen, pictured below on the ride, to whom I introduced it last year). You spend the first 10 miles or so cruising alongside the vast Croton reservoir, including crossing the Croton Dam, which separates the reservoir (a good thing!) from the park immediately below it. Then you hit the Westchester Country trailway and are on a protected, relatively empty bike path (especially compared to NYC's Greenway). All the way back to Van Cortland Park in the Bronx.

So that's what I did, stopping occasionally to take a photo (all somehow subsequently lost on the new phone GPS mapping app I was testing!) or wolf down a PowerBar or, at one point, a six-inch Subway sandwich. Not exactly high cuisine, but otherwise all well and good. And even a bit of a rain shower once I hit the Bronx didn't spoil the energy and good feel of the ride.

In case you're wondering whether I forgot how to do it, here is today's route:

Karen on a bridge spanning the Croton reservoir

And if you're reading this far and haven't yet donated in support of my upcoming Climate Ride, please consider doing so by clicking here. Many thanks in advance!