Happy National Bike to Work Day, Y'all!

Yes, I am pathetic and lame. I think all celebrations are great (okay, I might have a problem with 'National Run Over Cyclists Day' or 'National Torture Day' or whatever). I get ridiculously happy about things — but if it's wrong to be this happy, I don't want to be right.

We are having a giant awesome bike-to-work party at 4th Street Live today, so if you're in town, you should definitely drop by. There's a lot of great bike shwag that they're giving away for totally free! Jens got an awesome bag with a big reflective stripe and a water bottle. They also gave him a terrible 'fuel bar,' one of the new CLIF Mojo bars. I figured I would like it because it's crunchy rather than sawdust-y (I find most Clif bars quite literally hard to swallow), but it has a weird aftertaste that I really don't like.

I was not planning to ride much today, because the ol' leg is still kinda sore (though much better than it's been — I was able to walk normally this morning), but I ran into one of the Bike to Work groups as I was riding to the bus stop.

Apparently, I'm a (wheel?)sucker for a group ride. They were going super slow-'n'-easy, so I rolled along with them. I probably did less actual work than I would've done sitting on a bus, only I was outside enjoying a lovely morning on my bike with a bunch of other cyclists, some total n00bs (edit: Yeay, n00bs!), others very experienced riders with a lot of miles under their belts.

One fellow had a classic blue Miyata that he'd bought at a garage sale for $35. That's a nice find!

Edit: Now that my sinuses and lungs are back to normal and I'm back in my training routine, I'm going to get back to logging my mileage publicly. Next week I'm going to take it easy to let the leg heal, so my mileage will be pretty small -- this week will come out >60 miles.

I'm at 43.5 right now.

I haven't been using livestrong.com to log mileage lately — decided to try BikeJournal.com — but I think I'm going to go back to using livestrong. I like their route mapping tool better.

Further Edit: I went to the Bike To Work Day shindig, and it was fun. I only stayed for about 25-30 mins because my leg was not happy about standing still.

While there, I met one of the mysterious people from LBC listserv, and she was awesome (Hi, Laura!), so now I must actually go on group rides and stop being a lurker (note to friends who are in on the LRCRA joke — if I'm a lurker, do I have to wear LRCRA? Or can I just wear regular Lycra (tm) like every other cyclist on earth???).

I think I will start with the slow-and-easy rides — I can apparently maintain a respectable pace, but I'm still learning about group ride dynamics. Someday I'll graduate to the fast rides; for now, I'll take it easy.

I also received some great bike shwag -- for example, one of the nifty bags with the shiny reflective stripe. I'm not sure, though, why the whole bag isn't day-glo chartreuse, the Offical Color of Cycling: in fact, it's black! That's okay, though -- matches my bar bag, the one 'technical' shirt I have, and every pair of cycling shorts I will ever own*.

I also got a Louisville Pure Tap bottle, a TARC System Map, one of the new Louisville Bike Maps (yeay!), and something called a 'Builder's' bar (Oh! That's why they call it a 'bar bag!'), which is reputedly less gross than your average protein bar. Jens said so, and Jens raced bikes back before the advent of the Power Bar, so I believe that if anyone knows, he's the man.

The best shwag of all, however, was an insulated Polar Bottle. These get good reviews on Amazon, and I've been seriously thinking about acquiring one -- and now one has fallen into my lap, for free! This is really great, because (quite frankly) they're a bit pricey as water bottles go, and I was hesitant to roll the dice. Now I can keep the dice in my pocket (take that, Dungeon Master!) and establish the bottle's merits risk-free. Best of all, mine has cool Bike Louisville graphics (hi, Scott!).

I have no idea who, if anyone, won the Trek 7000 — for all I know, they may not yet have given it away — but it looks like a fun commuter-and-playing-on-weekends bike. I hope I don't win it, because I already have the best commuter-and-playing-on-weekends bike ever (hi, Swift!).

The only problem with all this cycling hysteria is that now I'm having a really hard time concentrating on my job ... as you can probably tell by the fact that I'm posting here, yet again :)



*Barring, of course, any 'sponsored' shorts in bizarre 'colorways' that I might acquire either as a result of accidentally joining some racing team or another, or because they're on sale.