I was riding close behind Rob at around 18 miles an hour when I clipped his tire: swerve, skid, crash. It happened too quickly for me to do anything; my handlebar smashed the ground, then my arm and head, and finally my right thigh/butt. I was shaken up – feeling your helmet hit the pavement is a sickening feeling – but took a breather and we kept going.

Last fall, I walked into Bicycle Habitat with a mission: I wanted to tag along with my friends on a ride to Blue Hill and a rented beater wasn’t going to cut it. I needed a speedy hybrid – and it needed to be pretty too.

Grouse Grind is a 2800 foot climb over roughly 2 miles (a little less, even)–which basically means it is straight up. And up, and up. Still, I was pretty blase about the grind, especially when I saw the number of Japanese tourists, tiny tots, and generally unathletic seeming folk who were milling about at the base of the climb.

Rain, rain, go away

It’s been a while since I got on a bike.  So long, in fact, that I just squeezed my tires to make sure there was still air in them.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to ride (well, maybe laziness has played a part), but I’ve been busy:  Jetting off to New York for powwows with Mollie, updating our website (so far, kind of a fiasco, but I have faith), and tending to non-Bikes and Biscuits projects (Vegas, toujours, Vegas).  Charlie and I have both been under the weather (he has a fever; I have chronic fatigue… or something). Not to mention the fact that it has been raining nearly every day since I got back home.

Still, I recently the received the following advice from a friend of a friend who has embarked on similar ventures and had some words of wisdom:

Train train train to avoid injury. Every tour I have ever done ended prematurely due to injury (either mine, my companions or both). Try to go on multiple 30 mile plus rides (like at least 2 a week) before you start, to work out all the kinks with your equipment, your joints and the interaction of the two. Adjustment may need to be made in response to problems that only emerge after long distances. Doing it on the fly may not be possible because the damage may already be done and you have to bike the next day, so there is no recovery time.

The corrollary is to start slow. Like 30-40 miles a day for a bit, and a rest day for every 3 riding days. You can always speed up later when you have tested your body. My biggest mistake on my first tour – three consecutive days of 70 plus miles because I “could.” Result, achilles tendonitis, recovery, six weeks.

With these pearls in mind, I’m planning to get back in the saddle.  Not today, but tomorrow.  Yes, definitely tomorrow.

Some footage from this weekend’s Queens excursion. Again, excuse the lack of elegant ending – iMovie and I are still getting to know each other.

My typical Labor Day involves grilling and the outdoors. This year it was more of the same, except there were also cows, chickens, pigs, and tents — my friends and I took a little outer borough field trip for a campout at Queens Farm. We were promised beer can chicken from badass butcher Tom Mylan, peach pies by Sweet Deliverance, and free-flowing beer from Brooklyn Brewery. We got all that and more.

But first we had to get there.

Our friends got themselves a zip car and had an uneventful 20 minute trip to the farm. Rob and I secured our gear to our bike racks using lots of twine and my best sailing knots and set off at around 5pm. We sped up First Avenue, made our inaugural trip over the Queensborough bridge, and then picked up a surprisingly well-maintained bike lane east. Our route took us through residential neighborhoods with modest homes and gorgeous old trees, past peak-time U.S. Open shenanigans at Shea Citi Field, along Corona Park in Flushing Meadows, and then through a shaded – somewhat ominous – greenway that was one of the country’s first roads. We were slowed by some minor mishaps (I took another spill over my handlebars, more on that later, couple wrong turns) but rolled into the farm two-and-a-half hours later. We quickly pitched the tents (well, the boys did – I provided moral support and documented with my Flip) and were happily feasting on chicken and baked beans soon after.

The rest of the campout was a surreal collision of hipster culture, bucolic farm life, and the not-so-far-off city — the sounds of cows and pigs competed with the car noise from the nearby street; aging apartment buildings in the distance. There was a bumpy, riotous hayride around the property, a surreal hipster dance party (dominated by a Molly Ringwald doppelganger with some serious energy), and a roaring bonfire. We slept in tents in the farm’s apple orchard and were woken up by screeching roosters and bah-ing lambs. Tom Mylan and his crew were ready with butter-soaked biscuits and rich sausage gravy, which turns out to be the best way remedy for too little sleep and too much drinking. More pictures after the break. (more…)

My first attempts at videography did not go very well (I ended up muting myself because of the number of “ers” and “ums” and “that’s all for now!”), but I patched together some clips from the day I biked to Grouse Mountain, hiked Grouse Grind, zip-lined for two hours, and then biked back to Spokes.  My friend Nick was a reluctant camera subject, but he did okay in his Bikes and Biscuits debut.

I’m actually considering this 30+ mile ride from downtown Vancouver, through Stanley Park, over Lion’s Gate bridge, and up Cypress Mountain via a switchbacking road called Cypress Bowl. Check it out here on MapMyRide.com.