Posted on July 4, 2011
After 2 days in TdF MMR Challenge, Cycle OverRide in 12th place
Awesome job everyone! After 2 days we are in 12th place! I’m personally in like 1400th place — but we must have gotten some riding in yesterday! It’s not trivial to look up individual or team performance — but all in all – we are doing well!
We are excited to see 27 members in our group now! If you want to join the challenge click here. We have no idea where all these people came from – but we like it! Keep putting those miles in – by the time the TdF is over the Defcon Bike Ride will be a joke!
Updated on July 2, 2011
Update: Tour de France Challenge Starts Today!
For those of you who have joined our Aquafor le Tour challenge — IT STARTS TODAY! In future posts we’ll refer to this as the TdF Challenge 😉
As of a few minutes ago – We have 18 riders! Woot! It’s not too late to sign up! Go over to the MapMyRide Cycle OverRide group and sign up. Let us know in the comments you signed up!
That’s right — you need to get out and ride as much as you can over the next 22 days! (excluding the 2 off days of the Tour de France. You don’t need to be Lance Armstrong to do this challenge. You will need to get on your bike though. You need to submit your rides on the day you did them to get credit it appears. You can definitely use a Garmin Bike GPS, the mapmyride iPhone app, or import from Running Free online (when uploaded w/the iSportsTracker iPhone app) Got an Android? Leave a comment on how you are successfully uploading your rides!
Good luck to everyone and isn’t it great to have but another reason to get out on our bikes and geek out our results?
Updated on June 26, 2011
Review: Garrett County MD Gran Fondo
Today I finished the hardest ride I’ve ever done; the Masochistic Metric at the Garrett County Gran Fondo. It was 62 miles through the hills of Garrett County MD with a total of 7,700 ft of climbing over the ride. It was a beautiful ride and I had a blast doing it, especially since my brother drove from New York to ride with me, but there were some bumps on the road. Read on for my experience on the ride and opinion on the overall event.
The Start and Segment 1
There were 4 distances in this years Gran Fondo; 25, 62 (the Masochistic Metric), 100 (the Savage Century), and 124 miles (the Diabolical Double). All of them started from the top of Wisp Mountain at Adventure Sports Center International (ASCI – this is a heck of a facility for outdoor fun including a manmade whitewater course… unfortunately I was too nuked to try any of it out today but I’d like to come back to give it a shot.) The double went out at 7a, the century at 7:30am, and the metric century at 8a.
Updated on July 30, 2011
Cycle Touring Hospitality
In 2006, during my second trip to Europe, I discovered Couchsurfing.org a travel hospitality site. The best description of what Couchsurfing (CS) is all about is posted on their website:
CouchSurfing is your ticket to explore the world — from the road or from your own home. Over a million members are out there waiting to learn about your culture and show you some of theirs. Eat borscht in Odessa. Watch kangaroos in Adelaide. Find the best noodles in Tokyo. Show travelers the best live music near your home, or your favorite hiking trail. Meet locals in your own city who share your interest in travel and the world.
Why am I writing about CSing here? Well — ever since I CS’ed in Switzerland while snowboarding in Europe, I’ve hosted people in Rochester, NY, where I live. And as summer touring season heats up here in the Northern USA, I’m starting to get cyclists coming through Rochester. As these people visit me going forward, I plan on writing about some of them.
Here area 3 such sites that have similar goals of connecting willing hosts with travellers:
- CouchSurfing – The largest hospitality site in my opinion. I’ve hosted about 25 people over the past 3 years and surfed a few times out of the country.
- Warm Showers – A cyclist only hospitality network (+1 for their iPhone client ) I’ve hosted 4 times – a few couples a few singles.
- Hospitality Club – I haven’t used this site but have heard good things
Before I tell you about my warm showers guests over the past 2 days now is a good time for some perspective regarding these hospitality sites. The way I look at hosting/surfing is a two way street. It’s all about engaging, just like the hacker community. When surf somewhere, the draw for me is getting a “locals” tour from someone who lives and plays in a city every day. For example when I went to Switzerland, I got the tour or Bern from 4 college students who love showing people the less travelled places I would have never found. I enjoyed a restaurant I would have never found on my own. I got to hear some unique history of part of Bern I would have never learned without significant effort.
Conversely, when I host — the number one thing I enjoy is the conversation. I have recently met some fascinating people. I don’t mind sharing my fridge, shower, and washing machine with these people. Last month were Lucie and Torrie, 2 twentysomethings from Montreal, who 2 weeks prior had finished biking from Alaska to the Southern Tip of South America. We had an awesome dinner and I learned what it’s like to tour for 17 months. Check out their adventure at Pedaling South. I was even happy to fix their WP blog for them 🙂 They trusted me with database access to troubleshoot a broken page for them 🙂 Little do they know (kidding 🙂 )
This morning, I had two X-Country cyclists of a whole different breed come through. Amanda a Greg where interesting in their whole unique way. It’s common for many of my guests to be vegetarians (which I am not) We took Amanda and Greg to a local restaurant called the Owl House. Best thing about this is they serve many dishes 3 ways (vegan, veggie, or w/meat). The coolest thing is that Greg once a month does a reservation only fixed menu vegan restaurant menu to about 40 people each month. Amanda introduced me to the idea of bicycle co-ops which I’m going to end up writing another post about (think of hackerspaces for cyclists!) You can catch up with Greg and Amanda on Twitter.
Here’s a pic of Greg and Amanda:
Tonight I have Ruthie, the Cycling Coder coming through town!