Cancelled races and Nyack

It rained yesterday. Actually, that's an understatement. Sudden thunderstorm is more descriptive. In any case, the Twilight series track race was cancelled. While this was depressing it did mean that I was well rested for today's adventure...

I woke up at 4am. Made myself some breakfast (sauteed tofu, peppers and onions), brushed my teeth and got my cycling clothes on. Grabbed my road bike (which I had just finished repairing the night before) and headed to the Williamsburg Bridge to meet up with some of my friends. Our goal was to bike to Nyack, NY, get some breakfast and be back in the city by the time we all needed to be at work.

Quite a few people showed up for this ride. At the WB bridge Dave, Lee, William and Gui showed up. Andrew met up with us at the George Washington Bridge.

While on the way to Nyack we mostly stuck in a paceline and kept up a pretty good pace. We added in a few sprints at random just to change things up a bit, and occasionally just rode leisurely and chatted. Unfortunately Andrew had to get to work earlier than the rest of us and turned around shortly before the state line.

When we got to Nyack we stopped at Runcible Spoon (a muffin/coffee shop) and had some breakfast. While there this guy passed by on a Segway with his son holding onto his leg, hitching a ride. Lee snagged a blurry picture of the spectacle which he put up on his Flickr.

Dave decided he wanted to ride my bike for awhile since we are about the same height and use the same pedals. That meant that I got to ride his LOOK 595 with the SRAM groupset. We swapped bikes and started the ride back to the city.

The SRAM shifters are really quite ingenius. They consist of only a single paddle per shifter. A light tap on the paddle downshifts while a harder tap on the paddle upshifts. It was pretty easy to get the hang of, although I found myself reaching for the thumb lever that wasn't there a few times. Once we finished the climb up Tallman Mountain Park Dave and I switched bikes again and we continued on our way.

Once back in the city I headed home to eat, shower, swap bikes and head to work. I'm now sitting in my office fighting the urge to take a nap.