Aarrghh, tandem!

Well, the tandem is still in the shop.  Tandems are notorious fuss budgets but this is getting ridiculous.  We spent all that money on a new rear wheel and it's been nothing but trouble.  We had way less trouble with the factory built wheel that came with the bike and would probably still have it if we hadn't "ahem" worn halfway though the rim.  They want to rebuild the new wheel with all new spokes but the guy who does that has been out of town since last Friday.  That means that the weather's beautiful and we're not riding our bike.  Sad Face!

TDF is over, now what?

Oh, yeah, I need to clean the house!  When the Tour de France gets over every year, I always feel like I'm waking up from a dream.  And what I see when I wake up is a whole lot of stuff I have been putting off since the tour started.  I spend so much time trying to watch as much of the tour as I can, I don't do much of anything else in July.  Well, it's over now and boy does this house needs some scrubbing!
It was a wonderful tour with lots of great competition and good sportsmanship.  My two favorite guys, Andy and Frank Schleck, came in second and third behind Cadel Evans, a great competitor.  I'm looking forward to next year!

So much but right now Tour de France

So much has gone on this spring, new back wheel for the tandem giving us fits, MS ride good but not great, back troubles hopefully fixed by a new mattress and box spring, staff change at my favorite bike shop not boding well for my continued patronage and OMG the Tour de France.  What's not to like about two brothers who are great friends and totally devoted to each other being ranked 2 and 3 after a frenchman in the lead who never thought he'd still be in the yellow jersey at this point.  Today is the last mountain stage with a legendary climb.  Tomorrow is the time trial and then the ride into Paris Sunday which is mostly just a victory lap for the winner.  I'm here in my un-air condidtioned bedroom on the hottest day of the year trying to watch as much as I can of it before my room gets to hot to sit in anymore.  The rest of the house has AC but my DVR is in here.  I'll last as long as I can and then watch the rest tonight after the room cools down a bit.  Go Andy!

It's Been a While

and a lot has changed.  The biggest change is that I have a child now.  I have permanent guardianship of my nephew.  He's a great kid and I'm so fortunate to have him in my life.  It was a tough and stressful winter but everything came out fine and I'm ready to get back to bike blogging!
Stef and I have been spending a lot of time on the tandem.  We are going to be riding the MS Cape Cod Getaway again this year and, though we're not as prepared as last year, we're still giving it a shot.  We just put a new wheel on the back of the bike and for what we paid for it, it had better make us iced cappuccinos while we're sitting at red lights.  The cost aside, we really did need a new wheel.  We'd worn about halfway through the rim of the old one (!!!) and desperately needed a disk brake of some kind.  There were just too many times where I'd have to unclip and drag my feet on the ground because the brakes weren't stopping us.  So, we are now able to stop as well as go which is important.
That's all I have time for for now.  I have to take said child to an appointment.  Hope to blog again real soon!

Taking a Break

As you may have guessed, I'm taking a break from the blog for a while.  I won't abandon it entirely but there's too much other stuff going on right now.  See you again soon.

Saturday Stats

Miles ridden this week: 71
Average calories per day: 2097
Pounds lost: 1.5
Current weight: 241 lbs (109.5 kg)
Total weight loss since 3/26/10: 50 lbs.
Next big ride: to Providence Zen Center 10/16

Yay!  I broke 50 lbs this week!  This is my first week off the cleanse and my first week ramping my mileage back up to normal.  I found that my body really missed the shakes as yucky as they are and that I was very hungry this week.  As the week has gone on, though, I feel like my body has settled down a little bit.  I'm adjusting to the different foods that I either can't eat or shouldn't eat as often.  To that end, I roasted my first turkey yesterday.  It came our pretty well, though the breast meat is dry. 
Let me tell you, I find a whole turkey to be a bit daunting both to cook and deal with afterwards.  There's just so much of it!  I have a plan, though.  I'm going to take all the meat off.  I'm going to make soup with the carcass and probably use the white meat in the soup since it is so dry.  I'll freeze the dark meat and the soup in measured portions so that I just have to pull out servings to thaw when I need them.  It should last me a good long while!
So, here I go off into the brave new world of eating according to my food allergies.  I'll be interested to see how my body reacts over time.

Hub On Wheels

We had a great time at the Hub on Wheels this year.  This is our third year riding a tandem at this event.  We did the 10 mile route the first year, the 30 mile route last year and the 50 mile route this year.  We were a bit confused at the beginning, though, because it wasn't raining.  This is our first year with decent weather and we thought we might have been at the wrong ride ;-)
We got there very early.  Stef had not received her registration packet in the mail so we wanted to get there before the lines got too long.  We've found that it's much easier to ride over there in the morning rather than make Jonathan drive us.  We had ridden the tandem down here last Thursday.  We left here while it was still dark and got to see the sun come up as we crossed the Longfellow Bridge.  I love being on a bike as the sun comes up.

We got there in plenty of time and actually had some time to hang out before the ride.  I, fortunately, had brought my knitting so I got to combine my two favorite pastimes!  I have no idea why I look so cranky.  I was having a lovely time!
The ride got started with a wonderful trip up Storrow Drive and back.  They close it for this ride once a year and I wish they'd make it a bikeway permanently!  It is so much fun to ride there.
This is Stef at the first rest stop.  I took a picture of her eating Fig Newtons.  She never eats this kind of thing except on bike trips.  I just wanted to have photographic evidence.

About six miles from the end, we managed to get a rear flat.  We were riding on a section of the Emerald Necklace that is kind of like a double-wide side walk and I think the rear tire got caught in the one of the ruts as we were going around the corner.  One of the things I usually like about this ride is that it's a bit of an obstacle course.  It really challenges my bike handling skills.  The downside of it is that it's a bit of an obstacle course and we end up riding over a bunch of stuff that can give us a flat.  We managed to change the flat with just a little help from a passing biker.  There are three things that I've learned from this.  The first is that the tandem is just going to get flats on long rides and I'm going to have to get used to it.  The second is that I'm never buying tubes with tiny, short valves since it's really hard to pump them up from flat  The third is that our pump sucks and I'm getting us a new one.

All in all, though, the ride was a great time and we'll look forward to doing it again next year!

BTW, this is us last year, slighty soggy and me 30 lbs heavier.