10.06.08
Posted in blog, cycling, events, links, martialarts at 3:06 pm by 1speeder
Yesterday was the Bike MS-100 ride. Johan got sick a couple of days ago, so it was just Rogelio and me. On Saturday, I looked at the course map for the first time and saw that most of the ride, 70 miles of it, was along the Palisades and up in Rockland County, both of which are very hilly, so I ditched my plan of riding the fixie and decided to tune up my road bike. I hadn’t ridden my road bike in two years. Only the first 30 miles of the ride was around Manhattan and hill-free. My plan for these three century rides these past five weeks (the NYC Century, the Pumpkin Patch Pedal, and the Bike MS-100) was to do all three on my fixedgear bike. I knew immediately, after looking at the course map, that riding fixie on this ride would be way too hard for me at this point, being on high dose prednisone for the past five months. I’m from southern Westchester and I’m familiar the terrain through the Palisades and Rockland County. Had I ridden the fixie, I wouldn’t have been able to climb most of the hills. There was one fixer I saw doing the 100-mile course. He always came in after us to the rest stops and about 40 minutes after we arrived the finish line. Still, major kudos to that guy. That was a tough course to ride on a fixie.
It started raining hard when I reached Elizabeth on the NJ Turnpike on my drive into NYC. There were a lot of cars with bikes on trunk racks driving up the Turnpike. It was going to be a long cold and wet day on the bike. The start area was at Pier 94 at 55th & 12th, but I ended up parking at 82nd & Amsterdam thinking I’d find parking there. Rogelio parked at self-park garage near the Lincoln Tunnel for $18/day. I saw the garage when I emerged from the Tunnel, but dismissed the idea of parking there, despite the rain. It would have been easier, and drier, to get ready there, as Rogelio later mentioned. By the time I was up in the 60s, Rogelio called and said he was parking in that garage. By the time I rode down from 82nd Street to 55th Street for the start, my shoes were already soaked.
I’d venture to guess that most of the riders were there for the 30-mile ride, which went down the
West Side Highway, through the
Battery Tunnel, all the way up the
FDR (there was a
breast cancer march going on) and to the top of Manhattan at 218th Street, then down the
Henry Hudson Parkway and back to Pier 94. On the FDR, I was riding in the left lane and got splashed from a car on the southbound side driving through a puddle. It was cool being able to ride through these tunnels and roads, traffic-free. You don’t get to ride on the FDR, Henry Hudson Parkway, and Battery and Lincoln Tunnels on your bike.
The 60- and 100-mile riders continued down to the
Lincoln Tunnel entrance. We waited several minutes as they
queued us up before they let us through. As we rode through, people were shouting and hollering. It’s not every day that you get to do this.
There was a serious headwind on the NJ side on the road heading up towards the Palisades. I was wet through to my skin under my rain shell, which wasn’t a full rain jacket. It was chilling. This chill occurred throughout the ride except for the times when I was climbing in my lowest gear and overheating and not thinking about being cold. I never rode on this Palisades drive before. It paralleled the Parkway, except it was on the scenic cliffside overlooking the Hudson River. There were some good climbs here. The last climb before we popped out at the top of Alpine was the longest one on this section. I was wishing I had a lower gear. Prednisone has the effect of making one’s muscles feel like powerless rubber. Climbing requires a lot of power. At the top I realized I had a front flat.
At the next rest stop, the 100-mile riders were treated to turkey and ham & cheese sandwiches, along with all the other stuff set out. What’s noticeably different at the rest stops on this ride from other century rides are the volunteers. They thanked us for being there and doing the ride while they handed out food and water. They topped off our water bottles from gallon jugs of bottled water. There were no coolers full of Gatorade at any of the rest stops though. At the rest stop in Rockland County, girl scouts walked around handing out Fig Newtons and cookies. Obviously, the volunteers at this event had a greater dedication to helping the riders meet their caloric needs.
The loop took us through Piermont, past the Tappan Zee bridge and up and around
Rockland. On the way down from Rockland,
Rogelio flatted. Both of us got these little slivers of glass or rock that pierced the tire casing. I think the climb back up Alpine was one of the longest climbs of the ride. There were a lot people with triple chainrings on their bikes, spinning up the climbs. We came back across the Hudson via the George Washington Bridge, down the Upper West Side and back to Pier 94.
When we arrived at the finish, a
cheering welcoming committee greeted us. Inside they provided hot ziti, hot dogs, hamburgers, muffins, chips, etc. and various brands of juice and refreshments. There was a massage area (and a long waiting line). My cyclocomputer, which included the ride from/to my car, read 102 miles, a 6:56 ride time, 14.7 mph avg speed, 35.4 mph max speed. My GPS registered a total ascent of 3339′, which I think is probably way too low, because it had difficulty tracking the GPS satellites during parts of the ride due to the tunnels, rain and clouds, but particularly along the Palisades where there was a lot of tree cover and we were on the side of the cliff. Rogelio’s GPS said 10,257′ of climbing. I think his data is more accurate.
We really enjoyed the ride, despite being cold and wet most of the day, and we’re going to do it again next year. You can see the photos here. More GPS data is at Rogelio’s GPS page and his Google map of the ride. Here are the photos from Brightroom.
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09.23.08
Posted in blog, cancer, cycling, events at 8:53 pm by 1speeder
The 2nd Annual SPOKES FOR HOPE, benefitting the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Wellness Community / Northern Jersey Shore, will be held on October 4th, 2008 at Pier Village, Long Branch NJ. (If I wasn’t already committed to the Bike MS NYC ride on 10/5, I might have done this one, even though it’s only a metric century.)
On Sept. 25, the New Jersey State Assembly will vote on Senate Joint Resolution No. 23, which would designate September of each year as “Leukemia, Lymphoma, and Myeloma Awareness Month” in New Jersey. This resolution would be a joint effort between the state and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) to increase the awareness and understanding of blood cancers and encourage participation in voluntary activities to support education programs and the funding of research programs to find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma. The joint resolution would request that the governor annually proclaim September as “Leukemia, Lymphoma, and Myeloma Awareness Month” in New Jersey and call upon public officials and New Jersey’s citizens to observe the month with appropriate activities and programs. LLS asks that its volunteers urge their assemblymember to vote yes on SJR No. 23.
“Remarkable progress has been made in treating patients with blood cancers. Sixty years ago there were few effective treatments for children or adults with blood cancer and the rate of survival was very low. Today, about 75 percent of children with acute leukemia and nearly 80 percent of children and adults with Hodgkin lymphoma are cured. Improved therapies and stem cell transplantation have dramatically improved survival rates for most blood cancers, and even patients with diseases resistant to treatment, such as myeloma, are benefiting from new drugs that are increasing the rate and duration of remissions.
Yet, an estimated 4,620 New Jersey residents will be diagnosed with a blood cancer in 2008. Every ten minutes someone dies from a blood cancer and an estimated 1,450 of New Jersey’s citizens will die from one this year.”
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09.18.08
Posted in blog, cycling, events, gps, health, links, martialarts, video at 11:58 am by 1speeder
From NothingButNets.net - “Despite the magnitude of the problem, there is a simple and cost-effective solution to prevent malaria deaths. For just $10, we can purchase a bed net, deliver it to a family, and explain its use. Bed nets work by creating a protective barrier against mosquitoes at night, when the vast majority of transmissions occur. A family of four can sleep under an insecticide-treated bed net, safe from malaria, for up to four years. The benefits of bed nets extend even further than the family. When enough nets are used, the insecticide used to deter mosquitoes makes entire communities safer—including even those individuals who do not have nets. Although $10 for a bed net may not sound like much, the cost makes them out of reach for most people at risk of malaria, many of whom survive on less than $1 a day. Nets are a simple, life-saving solution, but we need your help to provide them to those in need.” Here’s how you can help.
While the charity ride I am participating in for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society is still two weeks away, I just wanted to say Thank You! to those who have donated to the cause so far. Of course, I understand that these are financially difficult and uncertain times and I fully understand that most people want to help out others, but it’s not always possible. No one knows this better than I do, since it has been difficult for me to find work that doesn’t result in a total compromise of my immune system. Just being in the presence of people on occasion has repeatedly resulted in my being sick for four weeks at a time. I’m actually fortunate that it hasn’t been fatal for me yet.
BTW, while everyone knows that endurance cycling is how I prepare my body, preemptively, for harsh cancer treatments, like bone marrow transplants that involve high-dose chemotherapy, and it’s my preferred form of rehabiliation every year after I leave the hospital, the other reason why I’m doing the MS NYC event on 10/5 is because my neighbor’s father has MS. And the reason why I ride my fixedgear bike is because it’s hard for me as a cGvHD patient. (No, cycling for me is not easy. Just ask anyone who rides with me.) And it reminds me, with every painful pedal stroke, that while I’m suffering to turn over the pedals for 100+ miles, there are those who I am riding for that have it much worse than that.
According to Transportation Alternatives, the organization that puts on the NYC Century, I was “one of 5,517 riders who took to NYC streets on September 7th and made this year’s NYC Century Bike Tour the best ever!” Cool. It goes on: “Together we raised $250,000 to support T.A.’s campaigns to win more bike and better designed bike lanes, more bike parking, indoor bike access in buildings and other key improvements that will make everyday bicycling safer and more enjoyable.”
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09.12.08
Posted in blog, cycling, events, health at 11:19 am by 1speeder
On October 5, I will be riding my fixedgear bike on another 100-mile ride in NYC, this time to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
“Multiple sclerosis interrupts the flow of information between brain and body and stops people from moving. We believe that moving is not just something you can or can’t do, but that moving forward is who we are. Just by being here, you are connected to the potential, the hope, the momentum of it all. With the help of people like you, the National MS Society addresses the challenges of each person whose life is affected by MS and enables them to stay connected to the world and move their lives forward.”
Despite my own physical obstacles as a 3-time blood cancer survivor and living with a chronic autoimmune disease (cGvHD) that resulted from my bone marrow transplant, I still feel very fortunate that I can ride a bike for 100 miles to help others who cannot.
Please visit my Donation Page (http://msnyc.kintera.org/bikems/cyclops) to make a donation. (I need at least $100 in donations to even be able to ride the event.) Thank you for your support!
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04.23.08
Posted in blog, events at 8:21 pm by 1speeder
The Plunge for Patients on June 21, 2008 is a fund-raiser that benefits the Johns Hopkins Patient and Family Fund by assisting patients and their families with expenses not covered by medical insurance. The weekend-long event is held in Wildwood, New Jersey and is hosted by Morey’s Piers, “America’s Great Boardwalk Experience.” Participants can register to run or swim in whatever race they choose, and will be treated to a post-race beach party after the events! If you are interested in registering for the Plunge or would like to make a pledge, please contact Viki Anders at 410-502-5395 or andervi@jhmi.edu. Online registration now available.
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