Last year I completed my first hundred-mile bike ride, an event in support of the American Diabetes Association. For some reason, I have decided that a century is not nearly challenging enough, so this May I will be riding from Boston to Montréal to raise money for the Boston Cyclists Union.
The BCU does great work on several fronts, chiefly improving the safety of bike infrastructure in the city and making cycling more inclusive in a city that’s all too often stratified by race and class. I’ve long had the privilege of choosing to ride and the confidence to do it without fear, so it’s important to me to help make cycling better, more welcoming, and more accessible to everyone in my community.
But I’ll need your help. By which I mean money. Can you spare a few dollars to make this happen?
So far, training has been pretty chilly. Below is a shot from a local bike path last weekend. 25 mm slick road tires, it turns out, do not perform well on ice. I’m third from left, carrying the bike, and this moment is probably where I got this weird bruise on my shoulder, and possibly where I knocked the front gear shift out of alignment (again).
Next up, in addition to the BCU’s scheduled training rides, I’ll be doing the Boston Marathon. Not the running, of course, but the unofficial bike ride the night before. Every year, several thousand people follow the famous course from Hopkinton to Boston, starting around midnight and arriving at the finish line between 2 and 3 am. My plan is to start a lot earlier and be safely in bed before most of them even begin, but I expect I’ll still have plenty of company for my “matinee” ride.
Secretly Ironic 