Nico’s

With the permission of “Hans”, I re-post this:

Have you noticed an increase of bicycle riders in our streets? It is almost dramatic! Hot August Nights brings a lot of focus on fuel driven vehicles. This could be an excellent time and opportunity to the public aware of the wholesome, healthy alternative of bike riding. There finally seems to be a growing alertness and readiness to act by our authorities. If we could motivate a thousand folks to participate in the Hot August Bike Ride it could just make the statement to propel our authorities to make riding safer in our area with appropriate biking facilities.

While Critical Mass rides have their values, to transcend them we have requested Reno city government support and police escort.

How?
Join the Hot August Bike Ride on 8/8, 6 PM at the West Street Market (West St. between 1st and 2nd Streets) in downtown Reno.

Why?

• To help raise the consciousness for bike riding as a wholesome, ecological transportation alternative.
• To make a statement to our authorities for more and better biking lanes and paths, for biking education in schools and corresponding law enforcement.
• For greater health.
• For fun and camaraderie.

Who?
Anyone who can ride a bike is welcome to join!

I went ahead and re-posted it also on Facebook, as an event. Click here to check it out and RSVP if you’re cool like that. Or, you know, you can just show up.

I will.

Official results are in! We took 5th place in mixed and 13th overall. Not bad!
The team, Venetian Skunk, took off from Reno at 3pm. My turn to run came up for Leg #8 a little bit after 8pm. I was excited, and I was off on the road at dusk.
After about two miles into my section of the course, my legs started cramping. Thoughts of “oh shit” ran through my head, so I slowed down just a bit and tried to relax. I had a long ways to go, and not only on this section, but on the rest of the race!
Soon enough, both my legs felt like wires with ants crawling through them. My left one, particularly, was in pain. From my toes to my knee, it felt like it was all one piece: no joints, no muscle. Just one huge mass of pain.
I ran through Truckee, huffin’ and puffin’. I was almost there! At the roundabout, I almost went the wrong way, but I eventually got to the exchange point and ended my leg. I was in extreme pain, but I had this huge rush: I completed my first 4.8 miles in 42 minutes. A whopping 6.85 mph was my speed, which definitely put me as the slowest runner in my team. However, I never once walked, which was one of my goals (the other goals included not dying, being run over by a lifted truck or swallowed by a bear).
After Jason finished his leg at Homewood, the six runners that were in my van were done for at least 3 hours. It was midnight when we arrived at the exchange point in South Lake Tahoe, and we tried to get some rest. The temperature was 36 degrees, and most of the team slept on the ground of the Raley’s parking lot, in sleeping bags. I curled up inside the van’s passenger seat.
I wasn’t able to sleep much, but I was at least laying down and resting my legs. I didn’t want my legs to cramp up anymore, so I did something I hadn’t done in over ten years: I ate bananas. Two fresh, ripe and smelly bananas. My body was craving the potassium, so I put behind my self-imposed dislike of the fruit, and went to town.
At around 3am, Josh H. started from South Lake Tahoe, up Kingsbury Grade. He had to climb 1000 feet in 4.2 miles. Now, Josh is a hell of a runner, and he was done in about 34 minutes.
I was waiting at the top of the hill, ready to go down Kingsbury Grade. 4.3 miles of downhill, in the middle of the cool, starry night waited for me.
I had a headlamp on, and I’d never even heard or though of the goggle effect that it would have on me. The shadow of my eyebrows that was cast underneath my eyes made me feel like I was wearing some bizarre goggles, and messed with my eyesight for the whole stretch. At times, I would just close my eyes and run down the hill.
My legs weren’t cramping, this was a good feeling. I wasn’t going fast, but I wasn’t going slow either. Every single step I took reverberated through my body, ending up at the jaw. Thunk, thunk. A couple of guys ran past me, and I was wishing I was in better shape to be able to step it up.
I finished in 32 minutes. I was happy. My goal for this leg was to beat Josh’s time… I went just as far, but down the hill instead of up. He climbed 1000 feet, I dropped about 1300.
My body, however, was not happy. My shins ached, my shoulders were suddenly sore, and my stomach was making a number. I didn’t know if I wanted to throw up or go #2. I did the latter, twice in 10 minutes. All that bouncing from running down a hill sure shook up my dinner.
I felt pretty good when Nate, the runner that went after me, ran the second half of Kingsbury Grade at about the same pace as me. Our van’s legs finished south of Carson City, just a bit after sunrise.
We headed up to Virginia City, where we once again tried to get some sleep… and once again I wasn’t able to. I was too excited, and the cool breeze that blew on my face kept me wide awake.
After hydrating, some more Bowel movements, and the improvised application of Neosporin on some chafed parts, we were ready to go on the final stretch.
Leg 32 waited for me, it was sometime around 10 am. The sun was starting to be a factor, but I was ready.
I had a pretty big hill to climb (not as big as other runners’ climbs, but big enough to whine about!), and I was dreading every minute of it as I slowly made my way up it. I got my first and only “roadkill” of the whole race on this section, as I passed a guy that was walking up the hill. Yay! Another goal achieved.
At the top of the hill, I could hear the exchange point. My teammates were making noise, and I knew that after I got to the van, my part of the race was done. I ran as fast as my body was letting me, and finished in a mix of feelings of pain, accomplishment, fatigue and joy. My legs were throbbing, my shins hurting more than ever.
The team finished in less than 22 hours, which was one of the goals. I had a sandwich and a beer, and fell fast asleep on the grass of Idlewild Park.

This certainly was an Odyssey. At a few points during the race, I thought to myself “whoa, we’ve really gone a long way already“.
I was awake from 6am on Friday until 3pm on Saturday. I made new friendships, and by the end of the journey, I felt a strange, different and special connection with the 5 teammates I shared a van with.
I will certainly aim to do this again next year, and I plan on being in better running shape. I think all the bike riding I do helped me be ready cardio-wise, but my body was not ready for the impact of running on the road.
Today, Monday, I still ache, but I still feel what I felt when we finished: awesome!

I’d like to thank Jason, Josh, David, Nate and Bob for being awesomely supportive and fun to be with.

Pictures from the adventure can be found on my Flickr page, here.

Last week, browsing through Reno Baby! (a ning site), I found out about the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey. I read a bit about it, sounded like fun, and expressed my interest.
Yesterday, this guy Jason posted there to say that they were looking for a runner. I replied, excited, saying that I was up for it.
But then I was afraid someone would get a hold of him before I did, so I asked my friend and roomate Cory if he knew him. After all, Cory is a pretty networked guy. And it turns out that he does know him!
So, Cory “twittered” him, and a connection was made.
Hours ago, I got an email from “the team”, and I’m in!

And shit. I didn’t know the race started on Friday and doesn’t stop until you get to the finish line, a whole 178 miles later. Enter panic mode!
Just kidding. It’s sort of a relay race, and it’s divided in 36 legs. Each team has 12 members, so I only have to run 3 legs, so I should be able to survive without any internal bleeding.

I’m heading out to REI to arm myself with a headlamp and some sort of reflective vest… and maybe some bear spray. Holy shit.

I’ve had three cups of coffee.

After crawling out of bed at 6am, I rode to the Reno Bike Project, to eat some fresh pancakes while I waited for my eyes to stop watering:

There were a lot of people there, including Channel 2 news. (They were interviewing Wolfy as I rode in, so I expect a YouTube to be out at some point). I had me some pancakes, chatted with a few hipsters, hippies and random bike commuters, and then got back on my bike.
I was going to hit up Walden’s Coffee shop, but I didn’t feel like going to the other side of town and then come back, so I instead headed out to Bibo’s. I showed them my helmet, and then recognized the barista as one of the people I’d seen eating pancakes at the Bike Project, so he hooked me up with some coffee. I also bought a bagel, because I was hungry. (Important details in this post, I know). It was an “everything bagel”.
I chatted with another bike commuter also enjoying some free coffee. His commute was from Verdi to South Reno, and we chatted about bike things like the Procrastinating Pedalers and Critical Mass.
The last stop was Java Jungle, where I consumed my third cup of coffee. I was already wide awake by then, but I had to follow through with my plan, or what was left of it.
The temperature was rising, and not only internally. 61 degrees at 7:30am felt warm enough to ditch my windbreaker, and I rode on to work. It’s supposed to be in the 90s by the time I get out of here, so I’m prepared to change into my shorts for the ride back home.

I dedicate this post to George Pickard, who has labeled me as an activist for promoting Critical Mass in Reno.
At any rate, did you know we’re in the middle of Bike to Work Week? And did you know that May is the National Bike Month? I did!:
That’s why I’ve been putting miles on my bike. It’s been nice seeing more and more bike commuters out on the road, and it’s also more fun to race them.
This Friday is one of the most fun events of the whole bike shindigs. It’s the official Bike to Work Day, and some coffee shops around town are encouraging you to participate by giving you free bike-fuel. Check out the list of these cool places here: http://www.gethealthywashoe.com/bike_to_work.html. There’s also a list of related events, and you should check those out too!
I will most definitely be riding my bike on Friday morning, heading up to the Reno Bike Project for some pancakes, and then hitting up two or three coffee shops on the way to work. I think it’s important to mention that I rarely ever drink coffee, so I expect to have all sorts of jittery energy by the time I get to work. It might even be an uncomfortably energetic happening.

Yesterday was Earth Day. Yes, it was yesterday, not Sunday! Sunday just happened to be more practical for a celebration/event, while also coinciding with 4-20
At any rate, I’m trying to go all week long without driving my car, in some sort of celebration of Earth Day. So far, I’ve been successful, but yesterday was really a trying day.
I begun by riding to work.
I wore tights, and some really short shorts. You see, work had this contest for Earth Day: win $100 by using an alternative method of transportation! And since I’ve been riding my bike to work for the last couple of weeks, I figured I’d spice it up by looking just a little bit more weird. I didn’t win, but oh well.

Like every Tuesday, I have a Cisco class at TMCC. I was determined to ride up to TMCC by the end of the semester, but the dates lined up well enough for me to have a good excuse to do it, so I did it!
The final stretch, on Dandini Boulevard, was a killer. To add to the long steep climb -without a bike lane- was the wind. The fucking wind, again!
It took me a whole 33 minutes to go from Work to School (590 Eureka to 7000 Dandini), which ended up being a whole 10 minutes faster than I expected. Of course, I got there sweaty, out of breath and thirsty… but above all, accomplished.
In class, I struggled to stay awake. My body wanted to shut off to recover, but somehow I managed to stay awake. Now, don’t ask me too much about VLANs, because I can’t remember anything from class.
I looked forward to the ride home from class. Like the famous saying goes, “what goes up, must come down”, I looked forward to gravity enforcing its 9.8m/s² acceleration on my unit of mass, as I gracefully handled the curves that the road provided, whether it be by its design or its many many fucking potholes.
But alas. None of that. The wind kept blowing face-on, and the acceleration was brought to a near zero, providing a very neutral coasting speed down the hill. Damn it, Earth, this is how you pay me back for celebrating you?

At any rate, I made it down the hill, rather uneventfully. I crashed at my girlfriend Dani’s place, and caught up on the Spurs-Suns #2 game of the playoffs. I knew we’d win, but it’s always fun to see Manu kicking some ass.
I was going to finish riding home after dinner, but I took a shower and hit the sack, so it was the end of the day.
My route ended up looking something like this:

You can just click here to view the larger map

Not too shabby. It usually takes me less than 15 minutes to get to work from home, and it took me 33 minutes to get to TMCC from work. Throw 15 minutes for the “descent” ( ), and it took me a whole hour to commute. I saved some money, I burned some calories. I strengthened the bond between my ass and my saddle.
I’ll be doing this again.

My cousin has been playing basketball professionally for a couple of years, at Boca Juniors. I found this video of him kicking some ass at some exhibition game:

He plays with the Argentine national team too, and he’s only… umm… I don’t remember, but he’s not even 20, I don’t think.

I made a pun on the title!

Anyway, I’ve bought a road bike. It’s blue, see?

I’ve had it for less than a week, and I’ve already ridden it quite a bit. The primary reason of this purchase, was to make my 6 mile work commute a bit more pleasant, and it sure has become so now! Cruising on a road bike is so much faster than when on a mountain bike, which means that I can go faster with less effort.
Actually, I don’t know if it’s less effort. When I commuted using my mountain bike, I’d get out of breath before my legs got tired. But on the road bike, I feel my legs working but I’m breathing.
At any rate, I’m very happy that I found this bike up on CraigsList, and that I went for it. I wish I’d gotten a road bike sooner to cruise around town!

It’s been a week since I’ve been living at a new place. I have decided to move to the Old Southwest of Reno, with my friends Cory Jones and Jason Wickum.

It should be a fun experience, sharing a house with people who are a bit closer to my age and I already know. There’s also a lot of common room that I can share, instead of just being able to access. For example, the living room, kitchen and living room: it’s quite bare, so we’ll all have to build up to furnish it, and I think a shared feeling of ownership will come from that, which will make each one of us feel at home.
One of the things I’ve “pitched in” is my basketball hoop. Stef had kept it at the house after the divorce, but I called her and pleasantly found out that she was more than willing to let me have it! :neckbeard: So, I recruited Dani and her trusty truck, and we moved the damn thing.
It was quite an effort, to get it to not fall, and after a long and slow drive, we got it home:

And now it sits on the driveway. I’m sure videos and pictures of the many upcoming tournaments will pop-up here, so stay tuned for that!

3:01:29

That’s how long it took me to cross country ski for a little bit over 18 miles (30 Km). It was long. It was hard. It was cold, and then hot, and then cold again. But it was above all, worth it and inmensely gratifying.

As opposed to last year’s experience, I felt much more qualified to take part of this event. I’ve definitely learned how to XC ski better. I was able to climb the uphill section of the race without having to stop to catch my breath. I actually had a nice rythm going, and was passing people on the way up!
I’m guessing it took me about 90 minutes of non-stop skiing to reach the first soup station, at the end of the main climb. I was surprised at how much fun I’d had climbing, and I coudln’t believe how much less effort it had taken me. I was stoked, and as such, I grabbed a couple of cookies at the soup station, drank some water, and headed down the hill.

The fucking hill. I was going down the hill so fast, I had to stop a couple of times so that I would be able to start going down again from 0mph. My legs were shaking, ready to give up and make me land on my face.

But I made it. And soon enough, I was cruising through the flat terrain that makes up a nice chunk of the race. I came up on the 2nd soup station (pictured), which featured more water, gatorade, Red Bull, cookies, chocolates, fruits and jagermeister. I took a shot, had some sweets, and kept on keepin’ on!

About 5Kms away from the finish line, my triceps started cramping. A sharp yet delicate pain told my arms to stop pushing, and I tried to strech them while I skated with nothing but my legs.
After a couple of minutes, I started using my arms again, but as soon as I had to go up a gentle hill, and I really needed my arms, the pain took over again, and I couldn’t move my arms. So, slowly again, I made it up the hill until I could just skate forward.

This cycle repeated for 4 or 5 times, which were just enough to get me through the finish line, a whole 50 minutes faster than last year. Dani met me there, and hung out with me while I replenished with some chili, and some deliciously fresh beer.

I "stole" the map profile from here, and modified for better illustration of my race experience, and so you can have a better idea of what the race profile is like: