Be like Lance, sorta kinda

My friend Rainey is like my patron Saint of exercise. Without her calling me up asking me out for swims or walks or bike rides, I don't think I'd have gotten exercise at all this summer. She doesn't seem to realize that it's hot, dammit and therefore sitting on my butt is justifiable. She's always emailing me at work, a few hours before quitting time, making biking or swimming sound like the perfect after-work apertif. And, usually, it really is perfect, once we get going and start shooting the bull, at which we are quite talented.

Our bike rides are the best, because while we work up a sweat, there's something recreational and leisurely and goofy about them. We're just sort of tooling around the neighborhood, seeing what there is to see. Sometimes we run errands, sometimes we take long pauses in between to eat ice cream or check out a store.

Both Rainey and I used to ride frequently with several local cycyling groups. The groups organize rides, usually of 30 miles or more every weekend. Those rides are fun, but neither of us has done them in over a year. The problem is multi-spronged: for one, the vast majority of these rides take place on the far-flung edges of the city, along highway access roads or country backroads, which poses a transportation problem for me since a car is required to reach these places. Two, these rides are usually peopled by road racers with fancy equipment intent on getting in a hard-core training ride, which certainley has it's purposes, but which usually leaves me on my mountain bike in the dust, annoyed and demoralized. And three, the routes are repetitive and I've done quite a few of them already.

So I've been mulling the idea of starting my own bike club, or of at least generating some bike route maps and posting them to some local websites (if anyone knows how to generate such a map, let me know!). There are so many interesting routes in the city core, near where I live, that I think other cyclists would enjoy. A few nights ago I showed Rainey a 20-mile route that goes through a historical district and then gradually climbs into a neighborhood called Inspiration Hills with views of downtown. Here's a hazy shot of our teeny downtown skyscape:

I've been inspired by some of the bike activities going on in Portland, Oregon, which VJ does such a good job of documenting. During this suumer's Pedalpalooza activities, for example, the folks in Portland organized thematic rides, such as the "donut" ride which involved riding to different donut places, sampling the wares, and then riding on to the next destination. Brilliant! Other rides had to do with star-gazing, mystery destinations, taco tours, biking to a movie theatre for a movie, etc... I would have a blast planning rides like those.

I think there are two categories of cyclists, with many shades in-between: those who use the bike for a workout and those who use the bike for exploration/utilitarian purposes. I fall into the latter camp. I like to bike to either get somewhere specific or to check interesting places out.

Once we got to the top of our hill Rainey and I hung out for a while, being goofy. Here we are with our best Lance Armstrong impressions, after our grueling ascent:

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I went to the doctor this week for some doctor stuff and she told me, very nicely, that I might want to consider losing 20 pounds. That's the first time a doctor has ever made any recommendations about my weight. I made a noncommital noise, because, really, she can't force me to lose weigh if I don't want to, but I did feel chastised nevertheless.

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Have I mentioned what an obsessive list-maker I am? I gathered most (not all!) of my current lists together this weekend in the hopes of consolidating them, to no avail. Here's the evidence (I even have typed lists!). Still, compiling them makes me feel so happy and, briefly, organized and calm. It's a sickness, I know:

Some of these lists pertain to my planned vacation in September to San Francisco, for a friend's wedding. I'm tentatively planning an extravaganza of physical adventures, like dance classes, biking and walking tours, maybe a rowing or outrigger canoe class, plus some of the normal tourist stuff. If anyone has any suggestions for other things to see/try/do, such as a good place to go hiking, pass it along.