A Gentlemanly Century Ride

On Saturday, I pried myself out of bed to ride a century with Tony's group.

Tony has assembled an intriguing group of cyclists who live in the Hyde Park area. They are all somewhere over 40 years old, have very intimidating professions, ride shiny expensive bicycles, and keep a very steady 18 - 22 mph. Needless to say, I felt somewhat out of place as the lone Asian, 20 something year old female on a low end Specialized Roubaix. However, they were all very welcoming, and did not make me feel like they didn't want me there or anything.

On the way out to Indiana Dunes, I rode alongside Ralph, an Austrian professor of Art History. We ended talking briefly about his specialization (Romanticism ... which I sadly know very little about), and quickly moved on to European architecture. Here was someone who not only appreciated Zumthor, but had visited the Thermal Baths at Vals, Switzerland, went to an exhibit on le Corbusier in Berlin, and wondered my opinion of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's famous prismatic structures in Chicago. It's not often that I get to discuss 3 of my most favorite architects on a bike ride, so I was pretty stoked.

We stopped for lunch, where most of us got some form of breakfast food for sustenance. On the one hand, my bike looked slightly absurd next to a carbon Storck Scenario 1.1 and titanium Serotta, but on the other hand, I was glad that my bike was definitely not the most desirous item when it came to stealing. Belgian waffles + 2 scrambled eggs + coffee = amazing combo.

On the way back, I enterred "survival mode" as I call it at some point. This means I focus on whosever wheel is in front, and all of my mental capacity is devoted to hang on for dear life. I wasn't to the point where I felt absolutely destroyed, and I knew I was getting back, so no worries. And then there were horses on the Point when we got back. Apparently they have a Black Rodeo once a year. It felt pretty surreal to see so many horses in the middle of a city.


And here comes the unfortunate part about the whole thing: when I got home, my mom handed me a salad to eat. I didn't want to not eat it, because I hate letting food go to waste, but with every successive bite, it was getting harder and harder to chew ans swallow. It was as if my body were actively rejecting the vegetables. And then, I just started to feel absolutely awful. Exhausted, depressed, everything. By dinner, I was livid. I had been planning to go to a concert that night, but I ended up cancelling on all my friends, and going to bed early.

Moral of the story: salad after rides is a bad idea.

The month of June.

Urban Farming -

It's strawberry season, and currently, our front lawn is a mass of tiny organic strawberries. Who knew berries would grow so well in the middle of a city. They were a grand garnish to my lovely lunch salad of Cosco greens, Treasure Island yellow pepper, avocado, and tomato.

Children - Who knew that working in a bakery would be a lesson in child-rearing? Many kids have been coming in with parents because it's hot and we sell ice cream. Brunette girl walks in, probably around 6 or 7. I ask the parent, "can I help you?" He replies, "one moment," as they walk over to see the ice cream flavors. They come back to the counter, and the girl looks at her dad, who nods. She asks, "May I have a scoop of the rainbow sherbert please?" Which made me smile. I gave her an extra big scoop. Later on, a blonde girl, maybe 3 or 4, tucks her chin on the counter, screams, "ICECREAM!!! Ice cream!!! Ice cream!!! I want icecream !!!" I raised an eyebrow, and looked over at her father, who smiled at me and said, "The queen wants icecream." I did not smile back, as I kept flicking my glance between the smiling father and child who was continually screaming about icecream. I didn't even know what to say.

Icebergs - The dry cleaners is mad hot these days. Consider the factors against us:

1) Pressing machines. For several hours a day, the pressing people flatten hundreds of shirts, pants, and suits using scorching hot steam. Try calculating the specs on an HVAC system that could handle that. I bet the unit's size would be comparable to the size of the building we work in.
2) We work in an economically build brick box building with few windows. There are a few overhead fans, but they are definitely not large enough to cool off the entire building.
3) There is an existing cooling system for the non-pressing side of the building, but it's a swamp cooler, and apparently it always leaks moisture when in use. The ducts are right over the racks with newly cleaned and pressed possibly expensive clothing. Compared to angry customers, I guess heat is the lesser of 2 evils.

I've been racking my brains for a solution to this HVAC problem (in classic nerdy form). Combatting the steam-generated heat using electric methods, ie "Active Systems" seems exorbitantly expensive. Unless there were some way to capture the heat for cogeneration ... "Passive Systems," such as installing low and high windows for passive cooling seems to be a more viable option, but I imagine the single story walls are actually load-bearing not structural steel, so windows seem difficult. More massive overhead fans? Groundsource "heat pump" style passive cooling? Radiant cooling? Ah, the options are endless. Anyways, the heat makes me fondly desire some iceberg pets. Norwegian, Arctic, or Canadian. I'll take any.

Rides - Some great rides recently. I finally made it out to Willow Springs through the not so great neighborhoods into rolling suburban hills. I informed everyone that I was carrying 1040 calories for anyone who felt like they were bonking, and I consumed 700 of it before the ride concluded. Bike and Build trained. I stayed behind the fast group with Sarah Bransfield. Looks like she finally might have found a bike that fits her, which is great news. Also, we had Marc's father with us. We let the French men pull us back to Hyde Park. Sadly, I will now represent the only Korean woman rider on the team, as Liz has abandoned us for her cooler friends in New Jersey. She'll be flying out to S. Korea on the English-teaching Fulbright which is super exciting!!! I hope she keeps a blog :D

Court Theatre - Liz invited me to see a production on standby through our Tati connectin (Rory!), and it was a blast. "The Piano Lesson" by August Wilson had very minimal set movement, but they managed to tell an intense, layered story all in one house. The best part was when Rory took us backstage! We saw the piano up close, with the microphones all rigged up, the shop where they build walls and furniture, the costumes shop, and lastly what Rory called the boring stuff: initial planning and architectural floor plans (!!!!!). I've seen many Court productions, but this was the first time I got to see backstage.

Graduation - Bernard got hooded with the strange looking PhD hoods this past June. The ceremoney was, to be honest, quite boring. The PhD speaker I liked, because she reminded the PhD's that they should still be able to laugh at themselves every so often. The MD speaker clearly thought that only MD's were real people and I stopped listening to his speech early on. The highlight for me was when one of the Pritzker family children spoke for receiving and honorary fellowship (?) of some sort. Pritzker family, as in, the people who give out the Pritzker Prize in architecture !!! They're real people ?!?!?! Congratulations, Bernard!

"Up" - Bernard and I went to see the new Pixar movie, "Up" in theatres, and I loved it! Aside from the fact that there are houses the fly using helium-filled baloons, talking dogs, and giant rainbow colored birds, I thought it was surprisingly realistic in terms of the ups and downs of life. (Spoiler alert! Entire story synopsis to follow!) In the very beginning of the movie for example, although Carl marries the love of his life, she passes away before they are able to go on their dream voyage to Paradise Falls. The rest of the story is also quite simple: Elderly Carl flies to Paradise Falls in South America. Young Russell accidently accompanies him. Along the way they meet Kevin (a bird), and Dug (a dog), and run into a discredited explorer seething to reestablish his reputation by capturing a bird such as Kevin. Carl, Russell, and Dug all work together to save Kevin, and in the end, have each other as companions for the future. I really admire Pixar's ability to tell stories through very little naration.

Fisheries! Prom! Icecream!

50 mile ride to Indiana today.

The sunny weather brought out a sizeable group of people: Jesse, Francisco, Bernard, Sasha, Andrew, Marc, Rory, and J. Liz did manage to show up eventually.

It was a good ride :D And on the way back, Bernard, J, Liz, and I stopped at Calumet Fisheries. They're famous for their unique way of smoking fish, and they're right next to the bridge where they filmed the Blues Brothers bridge jump scene! AWESOME!

Calumet Fisheries has a very humble exterior. It's also take out only.

They smoke the fish outside, right next to the restaurant building.

The inside's covered in Blues Brothers paraphernalia. The owners are huge fans. Apparently they hosted the entire film crew for 3 full days while they shot the bridge jump scenes at the beginning of the movie!

Disreputables chowing down.

In other news, I'm back to working part time at the dry cleaners. Being the holiday weekend, and down one worker on vacation, I've been tagging for eternity. The week previously was more exciting because it's prom season!

A little too wedding like for me, but quite nice :)

The front one must have been a nightmare to press ...

I like this one, but the color's a bit drab. How about orange?

Some random tidbits too. The other day, Bernard and I went up to Wicker Park for dinner at Earwax. We wandered around and happened upon I Cream, a modern style icecream place. You choose yogurt, pudding, or ice cream, then flavors, then toppings. And then they make it for you entirely custom.

Front lobby, where people wait for their orders. It was packed!

That tank at top is where they store the liquid nitrogen.

The liquid nitrogen is fed into snazzy Kitchen Aid mixers to freeze the yogurt or milk into delicious ice cream. Yum.

Enchiladas con queso + 17 miles on bike ???

Tonight the team meeting was dinner out to Pilsen for Mexican food. So authentic you pretty much had to order in whatever survival Spanish you knew. We rode up with a motley crew of bicycles: commuter steel frames, custom Tati single speeds, Bianchi fixie, Specialized Roubaix, orange Dutch bike with coaster brakes, and carbon Storcks. However, none of our bikes were nearly as awesome as the custom cargo bikes we saw at this icecream place. We all wanted to roll up to a line on one.

At this point, I'm not sure the enchiladas con queso, ciocolate caliente con leche, and icecream was such a great idea. The potholes didn't make for a smooth ride ... but it's worth it in the end?

Floral Bike Shorts???

Headed out for a crack of dawn type bike ride to make it to work in time. A few other people joined me up to Fullerton, so we had a small crew of 4 people total on the way back. We pass this one guy on some kind of touring bike with racks wearing ... floral print bike shorts??? Liz and I were in back, so we were the ones to hear his query, "do you mind if I join you guys?" We ignored it at first ... in my younger more foolish days, I probably would have said sure, but now I am more wary of people's bike handling skills. Anyways, J told him, oh go ahead and pass us, and I thought that was the end of floral bike shorts guy. Around 31st St, Bernard, J, and Liz turned around to intercept the UCVC social ride going up north again, so I puttered back home alone ... until I saw floral bike shorts again. I couldn't stand the idea of having to go slow and have to stare at the floral bike shorts all the way home, so I decided to hammer past him. And then Floral Bike Shorts has the nerve to try to draft off me! No way was I gonna let that continue on. At this point, I'm just time trialing like mad to drop Floral Bike Shorts, and not too long thereafter, I hear a whistle (of defeat) and a welcome silence.

Today, everyone who owns a bike in Chicago took it out to ride. The 50 mile ride to Indiana crew even saw quite a few people going south for once. Gorgeous though :D

200k in one day!

April 25, 2009 - Team Tati rode 200k in One Day.

T-Storms lurked on the weather forecast, but the day disarmed everyone with its sun and balmy temperatures ... I hesitated while packing my Arc'teryx Beta AR, thinking I'd regret having to cart it around all day and the resulting sweaty back. Even if it does rain, I thought, perhaps I would be really hot in this jacket. For some reason, I even packed a Craft long sleeve base layer. As I shed my arm warmers within 2 miles, I considered myself insane and wished we had a Bike and Build style van that I could pack it into.

Before the ride, I had told people that I would ride Bike and Build style: 15 mph no matter what. It started out that way, but then J attacked, luring out Liam, Maris, and Loren. Dan, John Ozik, Liz and went a more sane pace. At some point it was just Liz and I, and we got in a lot of great girl talk (haha). Us women gotta stick together in the sea of testoserone.

Some 10 miles into the ride, it got darker and started to rain. Then it hailed. Liz and I each put on our respective jackets, and continued on. It did start to T-storm a bit, and I wished I had a camera to capture the imagery of bike riders against the livid skies.

By the first rest stop, it was pretty cold, but it wasn't too bad yet. By the second rest stop, it was freezing, and everything about it reminded me of the 6 days of rain through Pennsylvania. At that point, I changed out my sopping cotton socks for my thermal Craft socks, which I discovered randomly in the pockets of my Arc'teryx. I also covered my toes with sandwich bags. Bernard found these free disposable plastic gloves by the food display, and most of the people opted to try them out.

On leg 66.9 miles - 100.3 miles, I somehow found myself pulling J, Dan, Liz, and Bernard at 19 miles per hour, even hitting 31 mph on the downhill. I thought, odd, will I even be able to keep this pace much longer??? It didn't last too much longer, but we still kept up a ridiculous pace.

At the final rest stop, I simply couldn't stop eating. Energy gel, Larrabar, coffee, small bean burrito, 1/3 of a churro, potato chips. It wasn't inhaling pace, but as long as we sat there, I kept eating. Delaying the hardest leg, probably. I told Loren about the reason why I no longer ate donuts during a ride. Liam told people about his stomach gnome that needed to be placated. Everyone agreed that the gloves worked - our hands were still cold, but they weren't absolutely stiff and painful.

Leg 100.3 - 128 miles, J, Dan and Liam sped off at race attack pace. Loren took a monster pull for probably over 10 miles at 18 mph with Liz and I holding on. Liz vanished at one point, to take a phone call. Dan told her that apparently J and Liam both got lost and lost their cue sheets... Yikes. (They did get back safely eventually, but rode an extra 10 miles) However, the last 15 miles were just me and Liz ... She took a monster pull into a long stretch of headwind. We mooed at gloomy looking cows standing in the rain. At some point I took a pull, and then we kept up a steady cycle of short pulls until finally ... 2 miles ... 1 mile ...

The early arrivals had rented a room in the Super 8 to take showers. Everyone took showers and relaxed in the sauna like temperatures of the room: awesome. At dinner we shared stories of what we started to hallucinate after mile 100. One person imagined having handlebar tape on his bike that notably has none. Another heard voices and saw bears. As for myself, during Liz's monster pull, I kept imagining that the paint stripe on the road was telling us to turn right, out of the headwind. Go figure.

Conclusions:

1) This ride has converted me to Arc'teryx-ism. Previously, I thought people were insane for considering getting these ridiculously priced technical outergear, but it's probably the biggest reason why I'm not hacking up a lung right now. It kept me dry, but breathed enough that when I did warm up, I didn't get too hot. Also, although it's not snug-fitting, it did not flap in the wind because the fabric is really stiff. Of course, more than the jacket, it might have been the socks I discovered in the jacket pockets that really made me happy. Take your pick.

2) Team Tati =/= Bike and Build !!! OMG. On Bike and Build, I was usually in the front group going at a decent, steady clip. Here, even with randomly interspersed 19 mph pulls or pacelines, I was usually in the "slow group," with the fast group going upwards of 25 mph. Atmosphere was entirely different too, much more business-like.

3) Tati women's team >>> Tati men's team.

4) Nebraska is still worse.

Pink + Salad + Ride

A tidbit from the dry cleaner: Real men wear Pink.

Spinach salad (spinach, tomatoes, goat cheese) topped with tuna steak and mustard vinaigrette, is my new best friend.

The ladies on Tati like to lord over everyone. Actually, throughout the course of coffee, everyone eventually migrated to the sunnier side of the courtyard from the chill, and there was the most sun up on the ledge.

Expanding Architecture + Creepy guy on Bike Path

Expanding Architecture:

On Thursday, Metropolis magazine presented Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford's Expanding Architecture/Design as Activism at the Merchandise Mart, and I got to go. (Free food, how could I resist?) I happened upon it fortuitously. I was trying to look up the BPA-free Kor Water Bottle as an example of something absurdly expensive on the Metropolis website, when I happened to see the event. (Liz, I admit your water bottle is actually quite nice, and that I kind of want one now.)

Bryan Bell presented the book briefly, most of which was not new information to me because I read it cover to cover. This book made me realize that UVA is actually quite a hot spot for socially responsible and affordable architecture, and made me more excited about my acceptance there. (Oh yea, forgot to mention I got into their grad school, yay.) It was also interesting to see that a couple of the panelists worked not only on affordability in Chicago, but also discussed Hyde Park as an interesting example of how difficult it is to expand affordability. I may just write a few more blog entries on just this panel event, we'll see. Anyways, Bryan Bell was very personable, and I hope I get a chance to either work with him or learn from him in the future. I also got signatures on my book from 3 other people whose essays are in the book (Thomas Fisher, Roberta Feldman), including Katie Swenson, who not only graduated from UVA with a masters, but also got the Rose Fellowship to pursue affordability, community design and design activism. Intriguing ... As with all other architecture-related events it seems, I ran into a large contingent of 4240 people again, this time including Tom Brauer. It was good to be able to briefly catch up with him. And congratulations to Maurizio, who got into the post-professional program at Columbia! :D

Creepy Guy on Bike Path:

I rode alone because I had a dentist appointment in the morning, but I figured I could at least greet my fellow Tati riders on the way up north. I was happily minding my own business, noting the tail wind, when I heard someone approaching from behind me because their chain was audibly rubbing something, probably the front derailleur. If someone wanted to draft, I was fine with it, but the chain was annoying, for sure. I dropped him on the first hill, and I thought, phew. His pace must have been oscillating quite a bit though, because I kept hearing that chain whir ebb and flow behind me, which was even more annoying. To make things worse, then I could hear the guy moving side to side, probably trying to pass me, but apparently wasn't quite able to move faster than 21-23 mph (my pace at the time). Or, maybe he was checking out my calves like the other really creepy guy from last year. Finally, he moves up side by side. He was largish, riding some red beater-ish looking road bike with yellow handlebar tape.

Guy on Red Bike: "Nice day for a ride, eh?"
Me: "Yea."
Guy on Red Bike: "Been training all winter? You look like you're in pretty good shape."
Me: "Yea."
Guy on Red Bike: "Alright, well good day."

And he finally left me in peace to continue my ride. Maybe he was just trying to be nice, but I'm pretty wary of random guys with loud chains approaching me on rides to compliment me on my fitness level.

So Hungry!

Eating just a 90 calorie snack bar before the 50 mile ride yesterday was not wise. With the first spring weather, indoor-training sick riders, one Frenchman on a Vitus, one ultra-stiff Storck carbon bike, and only one other woman's rider (ie, lots of testosterone to share), we kept up a pretty high pace with random sprints here and there. By the time we got to the Starbucks in Indiana, I was starving. By the time I got back home, I simply couldn't quench the hunger no matter how much I ate. First I cleaned off the leftovers from a Greek restaurant the night before, no mean feat since it was the family style with 4 different entrees. Still hungry. Apple sauce, and 2 spoonfuls of icecream later, still hungry. I considered buying a morning roll at Bonjour Bakery, in the spirit of the summer rides, but the afternoon hour and nice weather foiled my plans: sold out! Bernard brought me some Greek dessert while I was studying at C-Shop, and that seems to have helped. And then Francisco, J, Dan, Doria, Jesse, Bernard and I ate a giant platter of seafood at El Barco's for dinner, and my stomach finally shut down.

I think my body has adapted to Bike and Build style long rides, so any hint of a long ride just jacks up my appetite ridiculously.

In other news, AIG, WHAT THE HELL ?!??!?! $165 million in bonuses ??? Give me my taxes back!

Pink Bike

The pink bike and I had a nice walk the other day. I did a solo crit around the Point for a few laps before breaking onto the windswept snow glacier on the middle of the grassy plain. I pedaled maybe 1% of the time, otherwise I was either running or walking with the bike shouldered or not. The whole time I'm thinking, only stupid people would do this ... (hahahahaha)

CX in Snow !!!

Miles was wearing some kind of spelunking helmet complete with a light. Tunneling through show, possibly ??? There sure was enough !!!

Sometimes the snowdrifts were nearly up to our knees, and many of us resorted to shouldering our bikes and running with them. I was in fact on platforms, and generating enough momentum to cut through snow was pretty tricky at times, at which point, I resorted to snow angels.

J's chain broke right outside of Bonjour Bakery, so Dan towed him all the way back to the shop. Every time we cyclocross, some bizarre mechanical occurs (such as Jesse's derailleur snapping off), but generally we seem to come up with some kind of awesome solution. (No, "awesome" does not translate to "shortbus." Stop that!)

Cadence

Rollers:
Resistance: None
Gearing: 34x15
Beck, "E-Pro": 96 rpm
Daddy Yankee, "La Gasolina": 96 rpm
Thievery Corporation, "Lebanese Blond:" 95rpm
The Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers:" really fast.

Portfolio: 90rpm
Gearing: 30x28 ...

Random Stuff.

Diana's in town from NYC for Thanksgivings Day, and she brought back a red velvet cake from Magnolia which I got to partake in! A-mazing. Her friend Andy also brought some New Zealand Riesling wine that was surprisingly good.

This is Miles getting lots of corgie love from Carly's lovely canine friends. He misses his corgies back in Kentucky. (Note his fitted, buttoned vest.)

Occasionally, there are so many geese on the path. Silly geese. (I should use that sky for a rendering though, it'd be perfect.)

Rollers!

It's been a busy week.

Partway through, Rhino was giving me a super hard time, and Alex came to my rescue with SR4. Thanks, Alex.

Julie T. (not Padzilla) stopped by Chicago for an interview for med school, and Bernard took us and Julie's friend Hilary to get dinner in Greek town that night! Delicious delicious Greek food: Athenian salad, saganaki, spanikopitas, moussaka, lamb, rice pilaf, baklava, other foods. (We got the family dinner.) I spent the entire night trying to get Julie and Bernard to stop talking about science. Silly U of C science people.

I had to miss ET's birthday as a result of the IIT Open House on Friday, but she beneficently allowed me to buy her a lowly dessert in stead. Hopefully she and Emily had a good time at the AKT concert.

Robin and Laurel were in town for their mom's birthday, so we grabbed coffee/brunch at the Med. There's something about the East Coast that makes people very busy, I've decided. Robin has two jobs, much like Diana, and she's getting plenty of clinical experience for med school. Laurel is applying to grad schools too, but for cognitive something or other ... I wish I could remember the exact field, it's pretty unique. Sentence structure comprehension related to syntax ??? Out there.

I massively overslept for the ride, and so decided to try riding rollers for the first time this winter season. I was expecting to feel pretty unsteady because normally the first few times on rollers I am, but it was surprisingly ok today. I even broke my former record of about 40 min by rolling an hour. By the way, Kanye's "Stronger" keeps a cadence of about 104, Ciara's "1, 2 step" about 115, and "Umbrella" gave me a chance to cool down at around 87.

Back on the Bike :D

As fun as travelling celebrity/backpacker style through some glitzy east coast cities was, it was great to get back on the bike with my Tati teammates.

Jesse, Dan, Liz, Francisco, Bernard and I headed up to Northerly Island where I pretended I was on a cross bike to practice mounts and dismounts. This might have been a bad idea, as my front wheel is definitely somewhat out of true now. The cyclo-cross people were lazy on the way back and made the roadies pull the entire way. Oh, actually, Bernard got lazy, so it was me and Liz that pulled the guys home. (Kidding, kidding.) And as always, coffee/tea/morning rolls at Bonjour is a great start to the day.

Portfolio time.

This and That

A lot going on, so here are a few noteworthy things.

Bike Riding: A little intermittent last week due to a sprained ankle, but that's feeling much better now. Today I overslept (sad face), and passed Jesse, Liz, and J on their way back. It was strange riding alone for once. Interesting fact I learned was that I have actually gotten a lot faster throughout September and October. I dropped about 15 min off the time it usually takes me to ride to the end of the path and back, which is pretty exciting. This is why I like riding with stronger guys, even if it means fake recovery days. I'm still working on how many layers to put on. The last few rides, I wore waaay too much, ironically.

LEED-NC study session: So I get off at the California stop on the Green line to get to the Chicago Center for Green Technology, forgetting what the surrounding neighborhood is like in that area. Shattered glass all over the street, boarded up windows, many open lots, loitering people in baggy clothing ... Eight blocks of that, and it was enough to get my heart rate pretty high. It's really too bad this particular building is so far out of the way. It's strange that it wouldn't be more centrally located, especially since Mayor Daley is touting sustainable design and claiming to be working towards making Chicago greener. It's so far behind Seattle though ... We'll get there eventually. Anyways, the guy leading the session seemed to think that we could realistically pass the exam with just a little extra studying, which I was mildly surprised to hear. I might reconsider taking the exam.

Shower: Since I got back from Bike and Build, I've been suffering through showers with rather low water pressure. I'd get back from rides, turn the water on, leave it running a few minutes, wash my hair first, and then MAYBE it would warm up by the end of the shower. Today, I turned it on, and it was a DOWNPOUR. Absolutely phenomenal. My dad fixed it. I guess there was lot of scale built up on the filter. It might not seem like much, but a hot shower after a cold ride is awesome.

Metropolis and Cyclo-Cross

We were ostensibly going on an easy spin, and it didn't really happen. So it goes with a group of guys sometimes :p On the way back though, we stopped at Montrose Park to try out some hill repeats. Riding up a hill on road tires is pretty tricky. My back wheel was sliding like crazy, but I made it up eventually. Not all of us had cross bikes, so Jesse, Dan and J began with a demo. I tried a few on the pink bike, and eventually it looked so fun that Bernard decided to give it a try too.



I think J should consider ordering a custom pink skin suit and white accessories for whoever's riding the pink bike. Hot.

ACTUAL Cyclo-Cross ...

So I was thinking I had some idea of what cyclo-cross was like from that race I did a couple weeks back, and man was I wrong. There was no mud at that point ...

It was pretty dark when I started riding the course back in Jackson Park, and I was wondering what was thudding up all around me, and eventually realized we were kicking up a storm of mud clods. They were everywhere, hitting me left and right and flying into my mouth like crazy. We'd stop to regroup, and our bikes were caked even after the first lap.

J told us to try stupid things and see how far we could go without crashing, for the most part. We did the course a few times, uphill sprint repeats, and then he put together this crazy uphill/downhill through-trees looping slalom. I fishtailed through mud, almost lost balance on a rotating seat post, and crashed a few times, but it really is much less intimidating falling on grass than asphalt. I'm working on trying to get my dismount a bit smoother so I don't crash the way I did my first race (I figured out why, I was bringing my leg behind my left leg rather than to the right of it, which is a little trickier at first but eventually faster).

We all finally understood why bike hand-offs in races were a good idea. All of our tires looked about twice as big as normal, and as if they were made of solid mud, not to mention our frames. Watching clods fly off while we biked home was pretty hilarious. I'm pretty stoked for the race this weekend.

THE one and only PINK BIKE.

Delicious Mud.

Notice the leaves packed into the cassette. It got so bad as to make shifting really hard/non-existent at times.

Busy People Accomplish MORE

The last 24 hours have been non stop movement!

It started last night when I saw the email from OSKA. It wasn't a definitive interview offer, but a request for more material: renderings, models, and sketches.

Now, anyone who knows me knows the latter two are not a problem. I am a laser cutter that runs on biofuels, and I crank out sketches like no one's business. Renderings however, were going to be a problem. I had put my best one in my portfolio, and looking back at the ones I used for my final project, they really just weren't going to cut it. I got back from the meeting around 9pm, and after bouncing around the walls for an hour or so (OSKA was interested in my portfolio ??? MY portfolio??? my PORTFOLIO ???) I got down to business of either cleaning up the existing renderings or creating new ones.

Around 5am, I set Kerkythea to render a fairly good quality image, and it was taking forever, so I decided to go out on the Tati bike ride. Yes, on zero hours of sleep. It was a fairly simple drills day, but there was an awful headwind on the way back. I tried one sprint, and then my legs reminded me about Sunday.

Back home, Kerkythea was STILL RENDERING! More correctly, anti-aliasing, but it was taking forever. I'm so glad I have two computers with CS3 installed. Anyways, I somehow managed to pull together 2 new renderings for one of my projects in Sketchup and Kerkythea, 2 diagrams from Rhino and V-Ray (!!! At last !!!), sketches of all kinds, the Mediatheque model photos, altogether in a very raw format which I sent off by ONE PM. Hopefully they'll be looking more for content, not layout ...

I caught the 1:45pm train to the Loop to go to Wired NextFest with Knute. It was really good to get out of Hyde Park and away from my computer screen. The projects were also a lot of fun!

The gateway exhibited the "Suitcase Pavilion" designed by Virginia Tech students: it can be carried in a suitcase!


Flowers bloomed where we stepped. It felt like Fern Gully but you know, technological.

CRAYONS for big kids! These "solid ink" cartridges don't require ink cartridges and thus creates much less waste. The ink prints by melting on to the page. We could write with them like crayons, so I wrote "yellow" with yellow all over the pamphlets (I'm 5 years old at heart).
They're video games, but rather than hurl bullets, you fly flower petals over green fields. It's supposed to be a retreat for those weary of urban stress.

Brainball is pretty hilarious. Two people duel by wearing straps measuring their brain activity. You win by pushing the ball at the center over to your foe with your "calmer" brain activity. Knute and I tried twice: I won both times. Clearly I had a huge advantage because I was zombie-esque from zero sleep. What was really funny was this random guy in the audience asked if he could try going against me, and I'm like, sure. I won. And then people were talking about tactics, and I'm like, dude, just don't sleep. It creates the perfect Zen-calm apathy.

And then I came home and my legs REALLY complained about Sunday. It feels good to have gotten that good of a workout. And it's also great to know that there are firms out there interested in my portfolio :D

Oh, and at Intelligentsia Coffee Shop, I took this sign to be a good omen (OSKA being in Seattle and my having biked there and all):

Crash!

It was one of those crashes in which your ego hurts more than your body. I should have known better than to be riding so fast on wet sand. Basically, my bike fishtailed wildly before skidding out from underneath. Kevin, right behind me, ran straight into my bike and entangled them ridiculously. I landed on my side and helmet enough to crack it slightly (ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET!!!), but no road rash (remarkably) and ... I bent my chain ring!

Great thing I have connections at this bike shop now; I got a replacement for it right away as well as a helmet to borrow for a few days. Now I don't have to feel guilty about replacing this helmet which I've worn for over a year. It's done its duty admirably.