The contest is simple. Ride your damn bikes, use your computer to track your miles. The first to show 3000 is the Champion! There will be some sort of sweet, trophy and jersey awarded to the winner, likely in an elaborate, well-attended ceremony with lots of beer and celebrities. The trophy and jersey design is still a work in progress, so once they are complete I'll put them up here for all to covet.
The blog will be my means of tracking the progress of each challenger. I guess you can consider it the scoreboard and highlight reel. I'm looking forward to some sweet photos to juice things up a on here.Ginger, The Beav, and I are planning on attending several popular events as a means of upping the mileage, so keep an eye out for some legendary performances. I'll be doing my best to capture some quality content at them all to publish here on the interwebs for all to enjoy.
Challenger profiles will be coming soon!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Looking forward to a challenging season!
Well, I think this is a fitting topic as it is mostly why I wanted to start this blog. I've got big riding plans for this season. Last year was a game-changer for me, somehow I started road riding and now I'm hooked. I don't know exactly how many miles I logged, but my best guess is somewhere between 1000-1500. The whole thing sort of snuck up on me. And not all at once either.
A couple years ago I was digging around in the basement of a local bike shop when I was introduced to my first road bike, a glamorous Peugot Grand Prix, the touring edition. This was a real beauty, what everyone's first bike should be like. It was in too good of shape to be where I found it, someone wanted me to find this thing. I was so pumped up I carried it right up to the counter and paid the asking price of $50. For the next two years I did my best to wear it out. Initially, I rode it the way I found it, the full 10 speeds, chain guard, touring fenders, headlight assembly, even the original bar tape. Then I thought it would be cool to have another singlespeed, so I craiglisted some sweet bladed wheels, splurged on some new tires, and chopped the bars. That thing took me places, and it was fast. A whole new side of biking found its way into my tiny shop in the garage.
Fast forward about a year. A commute to work ends in disaster. I'll keep it short and to the point. I road to work and Bri picked me up to get to an appointment. Next thing I know Bri is hate texting me from work. This is how the news came to me, via text. The Peugot was in an accident, it didn't look good. In a hasty exit, Bri left for work with my bike still on the roof rack, a few minutes later it had the misfortune of colliding with a parking structure, piling it helplessly to the ground with the roof rack following.
Fast forward another few months. We had just moved into our new house. Naturally we are shopping craigslist for some new appliances to replace the nappy old ones that came with the place. This is where it gets a bit creepy to me. I go to pick up a stove from a guy in Highland park and we get to talking about things. Mostly he's rambling on about how he and his wife moved to the area when they were about my age, blah blah blah. Then he looks at me and goes, "hey, you look like a biker," then he headed into his garage and told me to look at that bike over in the corner piled under a few other bikes. From a distance it looked like any other crappy old ten speed. I wasn't really interested but this guy was certain I would like this bike. So I waited while he dug it out. Turns out it was worth the wait. After this guy broke down the recent history of how the bike came to be his, he told me to buy it from him. It caught me a bit off guard and he knew it. I told him I only brought enough for the stove. Then he said, "whatever, just give me what you have." It turned out to be $27. I went home the proud owner of a Raleigh Technium 12 speed. Right away I fitted it with the bladed road wheels that survived the Peugot incident and road it as a two speed, using both chainrings in front with just one in the back. Then I got sick of that and shelved the singlespeed idea for a while.
Up until that point, I had been riding the road bikes as transportation, not really getting into the fitness aspects at all. Then, a few months later in a boring meeting at work I noticed the new guy is wearing biking socks. I couldn't let it go and called him out on it right away. That was when I met the "Ginger", aka Jeff. Jeff transplanted from Atlanta and brought his bikes with him. The rest is hard to write without sounding like a bro-mance so I'll keep it to the point. Now Jeff and I spend a fair amount of time talking about bikes and planning rides. I beat him in a race on the Technium, too. He was so proud of his carbon race machine and all the miles he was putting in on it that I made it my goal just to beat him. I remind him now and then about the victory.
Now I'm putting a new road bike together, which is how this whole blog thing got started. Jeff and I are competing again, this time in the "3000 Miles to Graceland." A challenge to be the first to log 3000 miles this season. The competition is simple enough, first one to log the miles on their computer wins the trophy, and probably a sweet jersey that we will design. Any riding counts, as long as it gets logged on the computer.
I plan on commuting a lot, most likely that will be the bulk of my miles. We are also planning on doing some racing, both mountain and road. I'll leave that stuff for future posting.
A couple years ago I was digging around in the basement of a local bike shop when I was introduced to my first road bike, a glamorous Peugot Grand Prix, the touring edition. This was a real beauty, what everyone's first bike should be like. It was in too good of shape to be where I found it, someone wanted me to find this thing. I was so pumped up I carried it right up to the counter and paid the asking price of $50. For the next two years I did my best to wear it out. Initially, I rode it the way I found it, the full 10 speeds, chain guard, touring fenders, headlight assembly, even the original bar tape. Then I thought it would be cool to have another singlespeed, so I craiglisted some sweet bladed wheels, splurged on some new tires, and chopped the bars. That thing took me places, and it was fast. A whole new side of biking found its way into my tiny shop in the garage.
Fast forward about a year. A commute to work ends in disaster. I'll keep it short and to the point. I road to work and Bri picked me up to get to an appointment. Next thing I know Bri is hate texting me from work. This is how the news came to me, via text. The Peugot was in an accident, it didn't look good. In a hasty exit, Bri left for work with my bike still on the roof rack, a few minutes later it had the misfortune of colliding with a parking structure, piling it helplessly to the ground with the roof rack following.
Fast forward another few months. We had just moved into our new house. Naturally we are shopping craigslist for some new appliances to replace the nappy old ones that came with the place. This is where it gets a bit creepy to me. I go to pick up a stove from a guy in Highland park and we get to talking about things. Mostly he's rambling on about how he and his wife moved to the area when they were about my age, blah blah blah. Then he looks at me and goes, "hey, you look like a biker," then he headed into his garage and told me to look at that bike over in the corner piled under a few other bikes. From a distance it looked like any other crappy old ten speed. I wasn't really interested but this guy was certain I would like this bike. So I waited while he dug it out. Turns out it was worth the wait. After this guy broke down the recent history of how the bike came to be his, he told me to buy it from him. It caught me a bit off guard and he knew it. I told him I only brought enough for the stove. Then he said, "whatever, just give me what you have." It turned out to be $27. I went home the proud owner of a Raleigh Technium 12 speed. Right away I fitted it with the bladed road wheels that survived the Peugot incident and road it as a two speed, using both chainrings in front with just one in the back. Then I got sick of that and shelved the singlespeed idea for a while.
Up until that point, I had been riding the road bikes as transportation, not really getting into the fitness aspects at all. Then, a few months later in a boring meeting at work I noticed the new guy is wearing biking socks. I couldn't let it go and called him out on it right away. That was when I met the "Ginger", aka Jeff. Jeff transplanted from Atlanta and brought his bikes with him. The rest is hard to write without sounding like a bro-mance so I'll keep it to the point. Now Jeff and I spend a fair amount of time talking about bikes and planning rides. I beat him in a race on the Technium, too. He was so proud of his carbon race machine and all the miles he was putting in on it that I made it my goal just to beat him. I remind him now and then about the victory.
Now I'm putting a new road bike together, which is how this whole blog thing got started. Jeff and I are competing again, this time in the "3000 Miles to Graceland." A challenge to be the first to log 3000 miles this season. The competition is simple enough, first one to log the miles on their computer wins the trophy, and probably a sweet jersey that we will design. Any riding counts, as long as it gets logged on the computer.
I plan on commuting a lot, most likely that will be the bulk of my miles. We are also planning on doing some racing, both mountain and road. I'll leave that stuff for future posting.
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