Purling Sprite

The Roadies

The cycling season is almost here, I am so excited and I can hardly wait for the snow to go away and the sun to start shining more often. The temperatures are still shy but we know that good weather is bound to come soon. 30-40 degree weather is still a bit chilly to take out the bikes and ride around but as soon as that thermometer reaches 60, we are heading out!

Who are we? Well, we are a bunch of gals from the neighborhood, remember Little Red, they are the same gals that rode it and this year we are ready and excited about this new season. Let me introduce you to them: Back row, left-to-right: LM-she is starting to ride with us this season and she just barely got a brand new Jamis Ventura bike in pink! Momber-she is a speedy demon (probably the fastest of us all)! She was riding last season til she was about 8 months pregnant! JW-she is another speedy demon (her and Momber usually are at the lead of the pack). She rode the century last year at Little Red. Nish-she is among the strongest riders in the group. She can go far, she can go fast! Jo-full of energy. She loves to climb and tries to takes us to this huge hill out in Newton every time she gets a chance (nutty!). Second row, left to right: K-a consistent rider. She always ahead riding alongside her hubby. CG-you know her from a previous post, we rode together the entire 78 miles last year at Little Red. Without her, I would have stopped at about 60 miles. She is the best cheerleader a person could have. Supportive and loving! L-she is my hero! She supported me through many of our rides last year, although she could have ridden fast with everyone else, she stayed in the back with me, keeping me company and chatting. I love her to pieces! Me-not much to say about me, lol, slow poke! Front and center: our lovely DD-She is amazing! She is fast as heck and with her new wheels she breezes through the rides. We are a bunch of friends together for a purpose: to share in our friendship and to support each other through active sports. Although cycling has brought us together, we tend to do many other activities together: movies, dinner, holiday dinners, etc., we have become a close group of friends.

Cycling is our main focus and we try to go out and ride together as much as possible. We clock in hundreds of miles and we have fun doing it.This year around though we are changing things a bit. We will still ride for the joy of it but we are putting a little twist into it, we are going to ride for more than just us. We will be riding to raise money for different causes, we are going to ask/beg to be sponsored for our miles in some of the major events. For Little Red we are planning a fund raiser to benefit a family in our neighborhood whose child is suffering from cancer. The little girl is three years old and is currently down in Salt Lake City at a special hospital. As you can imagine, the family is devastated and they are handling it the best way they can and try to keep a positive attitude about the situation. We have been touched by their situation and we would like to help them somehow. In brainstorming we have come up with the idea of Riding for Others fund. There are 10 of us and we would like to raise $250 each, for a total of $2,500. I have been thinking of different ways that I could do this, many of my friends are going to ask their co-workers, employers, since I don't work (outside of the home) I am going to come up with some creative ways of raising the money.

Ideas going through my head: I have lots of yarn that I am not using or plan to use so maybe I'll put it up for sale with all the proceeds to go to the fund. Also, I have a ton of loom knitted stuff that I have done for the different books and I am not going to use it or plan to use it so I may put it for sale directly or maybe have it as a raffle where people buy an entry for $1 and the more entries you buy the more chances you have to win.

Also, if anyone just want to sponsor me (without getting anything out of it) for the miles that I will ride that would be awesome too. By the way, right now, I am planning on riding 80 miles....some of my friends are tempting me with the century but I don't know if my hands can handle it (last year, the ulnar nerve on my left hand got fried and I couldn't use the hand for about a month).

The concept of Riding for Others has all ten of us fired up. We are excited and we are eager to make a difference in someone's life with our riding. We can't do it alone though, like all great things, we need the help of those around us to succeed. I will brainstorm a bit more on how to go about the fund raiser and I will post here when I kick off the fund raiser, I only have a three months or so to raise a minimum of $250.

Cabled Mitts Pattern for Ride for Others Fund raiser: buy one, buy two, buy 10!

To get things started, I have put the Cabled Mitts pattern for sale. All the proceeds from this pattern will go to the Ride for Others Fund. Help a girl out and get a cute pattern too. You can buy more than one pattern too :) (if you want to help me more). PS: Here is a gallery of finished Cabled Mitts to give you some inspiration.

Read more about the Cabled Mitts Pattern for the looms. 

$1.50

Wordless Wednesday...almost

Cannondale Jekyll 3000, 2003 year model.

Could it be?

78 Miles!

Saturday was the day! The day started off at 7am when 10 neighborhood ladies got together for one single purpose: to bike for the cause.  Helmets, bikes, and water packed we were ready to kick some asphalt! Some of us were going for 38 miles, and others for 68.

The Little Red Ridinghood tour is one of two nationwide all women ride and Saturday I was able to see the most amazing thing ever--over 1500 women gathered together to bike for the cause! I felt honored to be a part of it.

Women encouraging one another, supporting one another and coming to the aid of each other. I will never forget the sights and the feelings in my heart from this one experience.

When we took off at 8:30am, there was laughter and excitement all around. 10 miles into the ride, I knew that I was going to change my mind about the 38 mile ride. My knew was feeling great, I was averaging 17 mph and my heart was full of joy. When the first stop came at 21 miles, we found out that we got routed to the wrong direction, adding an extra 10 miles to the ride, so instead of 68, we were in for 78! But, I was still feeling quite well so I made the decision to go for the 68 miles rather than thet 38. Since is much more fun when you have someone with you, I convinced C, one of my neighbors (she is the picture above), to go for it with me, she agreed without much coercing. We rode together for the rest of the miles, cheering each other on, encouraging each other when the path got tough, drafting off each other when it got just too hard.

At the 40 mile marker, we were still feeling quite good. Our hands started to get numb and our bottom was starting to get a bit sore but our hearts were happy and full of energy, so we kept going. At 55 miles, we stopped for lunch....my favorite was being served, Subways! It was the perfect lunch! I wolfed down that sandwich in about three bites and off we went for the rest of our trip....the hardest part of it of it all.

The next leg of our tour was the toughest of it all...everything was uphill and our legs were feeling it. Our arms started to get numb and our legs just wanted to give out. We were getting tired and the only thing that kept us going was each other. With words of "you can do it", "just one more pedal", "think how far we have come, we can't give up now". We climbed to the summit....it is not really big but to us it seemed like Mt. Everest!

On our last stop, we were met by smiling faces of our loved ones! Sam, Wonderboy and Little Benny were there and they just ran to meet us....little Benny just crashed into me like a little football player. They were so happy to see us and my heart was overwhelmed by the reception.

After a quick rest stop, we climbed on the saddle again for our last leg of the ride. We were tired and the Aleve I took that morning was starting to wear off. It was almost 3pm, almost 8 hours since we started off! We climbed on the bikes and off we went for our last 17 miles. At mile point 65 my Aleve wore off completely and my knee started hurting. Our left arms were going completely numb and we decided to make quick stops to stretch our legs and give our arms a rest.

When at the beginning we saw a downhill as a break, we started realizing that after them came a hill and our enthusiasm for the downhills wore off. At this point we started concentrating more on gaining momentum and speed just to make the uphill climb. It is amazing how a little ant hill can seem like Mt. Olympus when you are tired! On the last hill of the trip, we joined the ranks of a bunch of raiders, slowly we pedal our way up. Then, we were cheered on by Sam and the kiddos who caught up to us in the car...with words of "you can do it Mom", I was able to climb that last ant hill. Once at the summit, we were told the wonderful news that we were only 2 miles away from the finished line. Those words were enough to give us both a burst of energy and our legs got a little faster.

At the finished line we were met by all of our friends and families who happily cheered for us. We had made it! 78 miles!

With tears in my eyes and a full heart I can truly say that I would not have made this journey without the support of my new friend C....we started this journey as neighbors and we ended up as friends. They say that misery loves company...well, I can say that misery does love company and makes the misery bearable but success, when you achieve success, it tastes so much sweeter when you have company! We did it girls! We truly are the kick asphalt club :)!

Logging in the miles: with yarn (an FO) and the biking

If you had told me a year ago that today I would be out enjoying myself cycling, I would have laughed and said, yeah right! But, I have surprised myself with what I can accomplish and with how much I am enjoying my ride. I have not broken a century, not even half of a century, but every single time I finish a ride I get both a sense of accomplishment and a great feeling inside. So far, I have done 4 rides: 1--20 miles, 2--27 miles, and today's 14 miles. My average speed is not much, I started at 10, but today I logged in 13.4, it is not a competitive speed at all but just thinking that just last year at this time I had never set foot on a bike makes me glow with a sense of accomplishment.

Today's ride was by far the most enjoyable of all of them, especially when I saw that my average speed jumped from yesterday's 11 to 13.4! I am learning how to shift and shifting at the appropriate times and it makes such a huge difference.  Here is a picture of me and my bike...as you can see I am a tubby little ball but I feel so happy right now, even with my tubbyness (can you see my big smile), I had just finished my 14 mile ride and I was feeling so great (1. for making it all the way  2. for still being alive and in one piece). Can't wait for the next ride (even if my bum complains!).

I am sure you are thinking...isn't this a knitting blog? hehehe, I have been knitting too, quite a bit actually. I am waiting for a little bit of yarn to arrive so I can finish the sample knit. But here is a finished project, or I guess is projects since it is two of them. This was a sample knit too for KnitPicks and they just posted the pictures over on the site, their pictures are a lot nicer than mine. The pattern is the Peek-a-Boo Cloche from the book LaceStyle. This pattern taught me a new way to start a hat: from the top down. This is a clever pattern for sure...never would have taught to knit a hat in this way--the liner is all stockinette and then it has a small cuff and from the cuff you start knitting the outside of the hat--really ingenious! The pattern definitely taught me something new and exciting!

I also bought more beads and some little bit of wire, so stay tune for another post on wire loom knitting!

The cuteness of it!

Boooohhh! I have been wanting to go cycling all week and the weather hasn't permitted. And today when I was hoping that finally the sun will show, snow decided to come down...boooh! Not fair. My poor ride is just sitting around gathering dust. Sniff, sniff.

Since the weather is not allowing me to go outside and bike, I decided to go online and look for some biking gadgets/items and I found the cutest jersey with Curious George on the front. No, I didn't buy it but it is so darn cute! I was telling hubby that this shirt fits my personality perfectly: silly and just like George, I don't know how to ride a bike.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Keep going, keep going...almost there!

That is exactly what I tell myself when I am cycling away. I am slow as a turtle and although I pedal as fast as my body allows me right now, I can't make my bike go any faster. I have adopted the "slowly but surely" cliche as my motto right now and I am concentrating on getting from point A to point B and so far, it has worked! Monday's ride took me to new heights--I cycled 27 miles! I know it is not much but I feel like a winner :).

At points, I felt a bit tired and winded and my neck muscles were getting a bit sored but not once did I think of stopping, even when I thought the wind will blow me right off the road. The experience was again empowering and exhilarating. My derriere is sore but I am told I will get used to it. I have also found a few websites that give tips and other information on cycling--such as which brake to use. Did you know that 95% of serious cyclists use only the front brake? I didn't know that, I am a newbie and thus I brake with my back one so I have to re-learn how to brake with the front one.

 

You would think that all that sore bottom would make me stay still afterward and just knit but the truth is that besides the sore bottom, cycling has just made my body super tired. I slept half of Monday away and to my dismay when waking I felt more sore! The key to less soreness--keep moving!

The pictures: they show my latest test knit. I can't tell you what it is exactly but it comes from the book pictured, the color of the yarn has also been disguised with a fresh color :).

20 miles---oooh yeah!

This morning was the morning when I left my fears behind and climbed on my cool monster (Anniversary-Mother's day gift from hubby), put my helmet, sunglasses and camelback on and went out with the girls for a 20 mile ride.

Before leaving, I was sure that I would end up as a decoration in front of someone's car but I am back and I have conquered 20 miles of bike riding. I was the very last one of the group but I conquered it. I was so scared when crossing the major three roads but I am here to tell the tale. If you remember, it was only last August when I learned to ride a bike and now, I am on my way to riding more than just around my neighborhood. I feel empowered and so proud of myself (despite my sore bottom). Next bump to overcome: wearing the clips and the special shoes....maybe in a month.

Hope you are all having a fantastic weekend! I will go now and sit on something with lots of cushion!