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This week my dear friend, world class ordinary-object puppetry artist Liebe Wetzel, fell off her bike.
Fell off and ripped all sorts of tendons in her right hand. She may never regain the use of her thumb, the doctors say. I say (pray?) that hands as intelligent as hers will come back, have to find a way to come back, can’t help but come back.
Or else, maybe she’ll do more characters using other body parts? (This movie features a bald head.) Here’s a hand-arm one: Moose. And here’s one with feet: Soul Man Chorus
Speaking of falling, another dear friend Lyena fell out of a tree four-plus years ago and broke her back, altering the trajectory of her life and her lifelong performance career. Here’s her website: lyenastrelkoffdotorg which tells her amazing story, and here’s a photo of Scott and I with Lyena and Dean at their wedding on New Year’s:
As far as my bicycling progress goes, we’ve decided not to do Team in Training this round, so that Scott can go to Megomeet and sell his playsets — though we might do the summer session that leads to a century ride in either Marin or Hawaii in September. And we will do Oakland Yellowjackets, which starts in April.
In the meantime, I haven’t ridden ALL WEEK! This is TERRIBLE. It’s raining, that’s one excuse, and I’m terribly behind on my three jobs right now (excuse number two), and… Ugh! Must get back on bike.
I have to revise my estimation of which bike store is the world’s greatest. This one’s pretty grand too, also not too far from our house, and sent me the MOST detailed emails this week offering great advice on which bike I might want to buy: Wheels of Justice
Speaking of falling off, falling into new activities, falling in front of friends and family, I will be performing next Saturday in an Action Theater improv show. I don’t know which is scarier. Bicycling, or performance.
In other firsts, I posted my first, and second, foodie articles on SFist.com this week.
And meanwhile, while it still rains, I knit: I’ve finished Scott’s hat, and now am starting on a not-too-matchy scarf. (Will post photos soon-ish.)
Scott and I just discovered this morning that America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride is the same weekend as MegoMeet — the annual convention for Mego collectors, who are not only my husband’s “people,” but also the primary market for the retro-vintage-style playsets he’s been building the last six months and is planning to SELL.
I suppose I could keep training without him, and we could go our separate ways on the weekend of June 3, but that kind-of defeats the purpose of having a Mutually Enjoyable Activity. Not sure if we could continue to do the training together, with him skipping the big ride at the end.
Wondering further if this is a sign that the scale for this idea has tipped overtop to a 6. Between this scheduling snafu, and the recently gleaned info that AMBBR has two big ascents and many small leading to 2500 feet of ascent/descent over the day — at a baseline of 4500 feet above sea level… let’s just say I’m a little daunted.
Yellowjackets, here I come?
So, today we loaded the bikes in the car intending to head up to Skyline Boulevard — the top of the Oakland hills — for a nice, quiet, winding, not too hilly “recovery ride” of maybe 10 miles. It was so sunny and clear and warm when we left the house.
It was Antarctica when we got up to Skyline. And we without any layers to speak of.
But wanting to get my ride on, as the kids might say these days, or not, I saddled up and off we went. For five minutes. I was very cold. Very very cold. But we were moving, and that was good.
We turned around and went back to the car. But I didn’t want to give up. So we went for another five minutes past the car, and then we turned around again.
Basically, while I’m riding, I vascilate between scared, and compulsive/obsessive/inspired/stick-to-it-ive. So while I was extremely concerned that I might decide I am too cold and tired at a point further away from the car than I could handle riding back to, I also didn’t want to stop.
I’d say that this is a 1-to-5 scale that I am on at any given moment, while on a bike: I’m concerned for my safety and comfort (1), or totally motivated to go go go (5).
When we came up to the car a second time, I was ready to give in to the cold (1). So we drove home. But I wasn’t ready to give up (5). So we put on our layers, and got on our bikes and rode down our street (5), up the big scary street with lots of cars (2), across a big hill through a residential neighborhood (3) to the next shopping district (3), bought lunch supplies, and rode home, ending with the long slow steep ascent in granny gear back to our house (3) which I managed to do without giving up, and with only stopping for breath once.
Woo-hoo!
The song that played in my head today was “Patience” by Guns ‘N’ Roses. Also heard a snippet of “Little Sister” by Michelle Shocked. Pretty soon, I’ll have an iPod biking playlist. And then I suppose I’ll have to get an iPod.
Well, I did it.
From zero, to three, to 20. Riding. On a bike. Me. Go figure!
The ride was flat at first. That was good, warmed us up. I was in the beginners/slowest people group. Fortunately, Scott went off with a group more his speed. Since there were three coaches and an assistant on my “team,” he felt like I’d be safe. The pace I ended up keeping would have driven him CRAZY.
On our first break, they taught us how to use gear shifting to decrease the water-balloon-thighs feeling. That for an endurance ride, the goal is to pedal more often, with less torque. (My legs actually feel better today than they did on my three-mile ride when I didn’t know how to shift properly.)
After the flat, came the hill. A big long steep climb that I couldn’t see the top of. Quickly I drifted to the back of the line, spinning my pedals in that “granny gear,” panting and heart pounding. I had to stop. Coach Carol stayed with me until I caught my breath. I almost cried. (I can’t do this!) Even walking up that hill seemed like an impossibility. But she taught me a trick — not only stay in the granny gear, but also go slow. Really slow. And I thought to myself, “Right, let the bike do the work.”
Everyone ahead of us long gone, Coach Carol stayed with slow-me the entire way to the rest stop at the halfway/turnaround point. We took as many breaks as I needed, with her continually chatting encouragement. She told me that I don’t have to keep up with anyone. It’s the trying to keep up in my various exercise efforts in the past that always led to trouble/injury. Suddenly, biking became completely Zen.
Along the route, we saw ostrich and horses and sheep. I forgot to take a picture.
The whole ride, I had this song going in my head, my biking mantra: don’t rock the boat (don’t rock the boat baby) rock the boat (don’t tip the boat over); the chorus repeating perhaps in time to my pedals, but mostly helping to keep me upright.
Unfortunately, on the last small hill, about 500 yards from the turnaround, I stopped to take a rest, perhaps a little too late, and in my low blood sugar daze, I forgot to take my left foot out of the pedal, and I fell over.
Here’s a picture of my road rash (which I got through my shirt):
I am proud of my road rash. And grateful for my helmet and gloves. And, now I know what falling over feels like. It isn’t too bad.
The way back was easier though I rode the brakes more than most people, so I still managed to end up at the tail of the pack. I knew things were going okay though because the radio in my brain had switched to Hotel California (such a lovely place).
As I rolled into the parking lot, several people shouted my name and cheered.
So, now that we’ve finally gotten me on a bike, and I actually had fun, the question is: Do we really need to train for a century ride? There’s so much involved. Almost daily group and solo practice rides, strength training, carbo-loading, hydrating, all the gear… We could just join the Oakland Yellowjackets instead and do the bicycle club thing with them.
Plus, with an endurance training, apparently one is not supposed to lose weight — not that Scott or I had that secret hope… Here’s a blogger who’s pretty famous for his struggle in this area: Fat Cyclist
On the other hand, it’s nice to have a goal, and all the coaches and instruction clinics, and the car that goes up and down the route in case anyone needs to get driven back, and the really nice people, and the groovy jersey, and the good cause.
We’re going to sleep on it for now, and maybe go out and buy me a bike tomorrow.
On Wednesday, February 14, 2007, I took my first bike ride in 20 years.
That long ago, in college, I bought a purple mountain bike and rode it once. Five years later I moved to an apartment in Oakland, where someone stole it out of my garage, and I collected $150 on my renter’s insurance policy. And I was happy.
So, how did this happen? What am I doing on a bike? Note in picture, the lovely spare helmet that Husband Scott had been keeping in our swampy garage. It’s really too bad that the web doesn’t offer smell-o-vision.
The bike (also in picture) is a loaner from my hairdresser Maggie (offered to me when she heard of my hair-brained scheme).
The handle grips are a little sticky, she’d said, apologetically. (Note, in photo the oversized yellow gardening gloves. Also note in photo the lovely pink Puma faux biking shoes (which came un-velcroed each time I pedaled).
But me actuallly pedaling is getting ahead of the story.
So, here goes:
I am a habitually sedentary woman, married to a man who used to ride 40-80 miles at a go on the weekends before he met me, and became increasingly sedentary after (no guilt here).
Recently, I started editing for a parenting blog, and one of the writers, who had not lost her baby weight over two pregnancies, mentioned that she was going to get in shape by doing the Team in Training program for a century ride in June in Lake Tahoe.
I looked up the info in order to fact check her blog post, and decided: Me Too.
And that, was that.
People say, “It’s just like riding a bike,” meaning once you learn, you never forget. And this is what I have to say: Ummm… nope!
Getting on that bike, trying to figure out how to get on and not fall over, pedal and not fall over, stop and not fall over. Reprogramming my brain to picture staying up instead of picturing falling over (power of positive thinking)…
It’s about 3/4 of a mile from our house to the world’s greatest bike store, and most of that is downhill, so that was a good thing.
WGBS because the people who worked there were really nice and not in any way condescending and not at all surprised that I was out for my first bike ride at age 37.
Okay, not my first, or second. There was that childhood bike, pink with a flower print vinyl banana seat and the kind of brakes where you just pedal backwards to stop and my sister and I would ride our pink bikes in small circles around the top of our driveway, rolling down the steep part occasionally — which was fun, and then walking the bike back up again.
The bike store guy checked out Maggie’s, gave it the thumbs up, and put on a new pair of handle grips — necessary, as well as my gift to her as a thank you for lending it, and then Scott bought me the world’s greatest helmet (so comfortable!) for Valentine’s Day.
The ride back was mostly uphill. A long, steep, slow climb. I shifted down and down until I was at the ultimate “granny gear,”spinning my way home. My legs felt like giant inflated waterballoons. And this is how happy I felt at the end of it:
So, on Saturday, Scott and I and my new helmet will go to Dublin for our first T-n-T event. A 20-mile ride. They claim I don’t have to do the whole thing. We’ll see.
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