Butt and Underwear

Andy writes:

After receiving a few complaints about my "underwear talk" on this blog, I've decided to stop discussing the topic. But for those who actually are interested (and I'm sure there's someone out there who cares!), my butt is feeling pretty good - at least that's what Linda says ;)

New Bike and Encouragement

Linda writes:

Picked up the bike yesterday! It's a beauty! Thanks Bicycle Man! Now all it needs is a "Wide Load" sign on the back! And all I need is someplace to ride it! 21 degrees outside right now, with 5" snow on the ground, not to mention the dirt and salt on the roads!

Anyway, the feedback we've received both verbally and financially is SO encouraging! Thank you everyone!

Cool Dude

Linda writes:

Here's Andy sporting his new pair of biking shorts. Note the helmet - I think he thinks he looks cool... you be the judge!

Linda on the Bike

Andy writes:

Here's Linda, hard at it:

Shorts

Andy writes:

Apparently you don't wear underwear when you wear those fancy bike shorts. Excellent - it looks like I'll be all set!

Andy's Bike Setup

Andy writes:

This weekend we picked up a trainer for my bike. Now I can ride on my real bike instead of the exercise bike. I was getting pretty concerned that I needed to get my butt (yes, my butt) in shape for this ride - it doesn't usually get the workout that this bike seat is going to put it through. Sure enough, I've been riding on the new setup over the weekend, and boy is my ass sore. I can tell it's breaking in, though, because it gets a little easier each time.

I also got some nice road tires and tubes for my bike, instead of the knobby mountain bike tires that were on it. These look like they'll be excellent! Nice and smooth. I switched the bike over to the new tires, and about an hour later I had a flat on the front. So I have zero miles on the new tires and I already have a flat. I hate to calculate how many flats that means over 600 miles! (of course you math wizards know the correct answer is infinity)

Another thing I figured out now that I'm on my real bike is that I need some new underwear (something a little more serious in the "package containment" area). This biking is getting expensive!

Big Day Today!

Linda writes:

Bought a bike!
Booked our plane tickets!
Ride Sally Ride!

Training?

Linda writes:

So now we figure we'd better start training seriously. What does that mean? There's snow outside, so unless making snow angels is considered exercise, we're out of luck there!

Luckily (?) we have a stationary recumbent exercise bike. So we've been taking turns on that. We each ride for an hour and then switch. So far so good. We each did 30 miles Sunday.

Of course, being the list people we are ... a log seemed a natural thing to create! And so now we each have a log to record the date, miles ridden, time elapsed, resistance level, and weight. Oh joy!

It's a GO!

Linda writes:

Great news! Andy's parents sent an email - they'll watch the kids for the whole time! Woo hoo! Looks like we're on!

Now we're not sure who has the harder job - staying here with the kids or pedalling 600 miles!

Trikes

Linda and Andy write:

If we're going to do a bike ride, we figured out real quick that we probably need bikes. Andy has a mountain bike and a hybrid bike - he could put road tires on one of them and use that. Linda can't ride a two-wheeler, so we need to do something serious about that.

Turns out there's a bike shop 3 1/2 hours from here in Alfred, NY (http://www.bicycleman.com/). It's a bike shop that specializes in recumbents and also has trikes.

So off we went this morning. We thought there would be one or two to choose from - it turns out there are a slew of choices! The biggest surprise, though, was how FUN they are to ride. Not sure about 600 miles, but around the block they're a blast! We lucked out and had great weather (and no snow on the ground) so we could try them out. Unheard of for January in Central New York! Anyway, Linda decided on the best one for her - a WizWheelz Cruiser. Andy also picked one out, since they're so cool. He may not get one, but in case the urge strikes. We decided not to order anything just yet. We have no idea if we're going to go through with this or not. We don't even have anyone to watch the kids yet, nevermind any of the other logistical hurdles. Stay tuned...

Should we stay or should we go now?

Linda writes:

So at Christmas, on the ride to Andy's parent's house, I was reading the Friedreich's Ataxia newsletter (The Advocate) and I saw Kyle's invitation to join RideAtaxia... a bike-ride fund-raiser for Ataxia research. When I asked Andy if he thought we could do this, he gave an emphatic "No."

And so, here we are, buying a trike, organizing child-care, booking flights, arranging weeks off from work, and training our butts off. The fact that we don't know what aerobars are or what a sag vehicle is isn't stopping us (although we should probably find that kind of stuff out soon).