TRAMmer Time!

I am such a slacker blogger! A lot has been happening, people, and yet I have been neglecting my blog posting duties. Which means it’s like all this stuff didn’t even happen, you know? You know what they say: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to blog about it, it doesn’t make a sound. That’s a scientific fact.

SO, last weekend I did my planned 60- and 50-mile rides. Before my training partners get all uppity about how I train too much and am totally nuts, let me state for the record that the MS Society’s TRAM brochure training program explicitly stated that I was supposed to do that. When I am given a training program, I follow it to the letter. Unless I am going above and beyond it like a crazy person. But I digress! My weekend rides were totally manageable and left me feeling somewhat prepared for this monstrosity of a ride. Though I will admit that I purposely chose relatively flat routes, so as to avoid lots of teeth-gnashing and whining, which may technically have been a wimpy call.

I spent a bunch of the weekend on Beach Drive, which is a massive biker haven on the weekends. It’s the best biker-people-watching opportunity of all time, which has allowed me to make some earth-shattering observations. For example:

• Not everyone who has a fancy-ass bike and coordinated spandexy outfit is good at riding. This weekend I actually managed on two separate occasions to pass fancy-pants biking dudes—while going uphill! Granted, this means they were riding approx. 5 mph. Regardless, for me this was the equivalent of winning my own personal Tour de France.
• Conversely, sometimes people who seem to have no game at all—e.g some guys in khaki shorts and orthopedic sandals with He-Man calves—might pass you like you’re standing still. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.
• I have an irresistible urge to catch up with and pass people who are not wearing a helmet because to me that means they are NOT serious bikers and thus I must try to show them how it is done. The same urge surfaces when I see the following: women in tube tops, people riding 700-lb mountain bikes, and that guy I saw this weekend riding a racing-bike-style tricycle. Not kidding.
• There are not a lot of ladies out biking! On Beach Dr I am usually outnumbered, like, 8 to 1. This is a strange change from my day-to-day life where the ladies at work (at a women’s organization) outnumber the men 44 to 3. This makes me want to recruit MORE lady bikers!! Watch out, friends! I’m coming to get you.

The only other noteworthy accomplishment of the weekend was when Bert and I broke my bike into tiny pieces and put it in a box to be shipped to Minnesota. This was sort of traumatizing and yet sort of cathartic, all at the same time. On a related note, I just talked to my dad. The bike got to Ortonville like an hour ago and he already had the local bike guru assemble it! Things happen FAST in O-town.


One final observation and then I will shut up for the day: I think that my fellow TRAMmer Time bloggers--and my adorable parents, plus my awesome aunts who will be along for the ride--are really hysterically funny, and at this point that is the #1 reason I am looking forward to the ride. I mean, if you don't count the obvious do-gooder reasons for looking forward it, that is. You all are the best!