~ Le Tour de Fat and other bicycling experiences ~

Yesterday, to put it mildly, was kind of an epic day. I was experiencing a hangover at 9p.m., had had my fill of silly costumes, wanted nothing more than to ride a bike with an extra pivit or with automobile tires or with wheels winding about my head, and was feeling embarrassed about my performance in a dance competition, not to mention my various wounds (such as a stubbed toe and lacerated leg). But before yesterday, came other sets of epic experiences. I have spent the past six weeks studying for the GRE, so as to apply for graduate school. I refer you to my previous post on how I felt about that. After taking the exam on Tuesday morning, I slumped into a depression for the rest of the week which was in no way related to the GRE. I had been feeling very blue. So, both of the items, the GRE and the saddness, contributed to my lack of posting for the past month.

On Friday, Josh and I rode Hard Guy. I had intended to make Hard Guy it's own post, but it leads so well into this post, serving as the nexus between my depression and the fact that today my facial muscles are seriously sore because I smiled too much yesterday. So, the air quality in Boise has been unhealthy at a pretty consistent rate lately, which has made me felt disinclined to do things (such as mountain biking) which incline me to breath heavily while outside. That, and also the aerial spraying of pesticides which "they" say isn't harmful to humans (my allergies have been going crazy since they began spraying). A wind storm came through on Friday and seemed to clear the air a bit. Josh and I seized the opportunity and rode Hard Guy. Neither of us had ridden for a while and we both observed a lack of feeling at the top of our game, yet the ride was fantastic. Additionally, I'm still timing myself on this ride, and on Friday I rode it faster than at any other time before, exactly five minutes faster, which made me feel incredible. Also, because there is so much pollution in the air, the sunsets have been stunning recently. Josh and I took the opportunity to take photos of us riding, in a vain attempt to photograph us "catching air".

This brings me to my main thesis: I feel that bicycling, in all its forms, is good for the spirit.

Yesterday, Josh and I attended Le Tour de Fat. It started with a cruiser parade in the morning. Josh and I donned our silly halloween costumes of a duck and dragon (which are good stock costumes to have on hand, you know, on the off chance that we need a costume for something but have no money to invest in costuming) and met about 500 other costumed cruiserers at the Rose Garden. We rode in parade style through the Greenbelt, down Warm Springs, and made a loop around downtown. It was a lot of fun. Many people went all out with their costuming and many of the bikes themselves were wonders to behold. Thus, I took many photos of the parade.

After the parade, Josh and I abandoned our costumes and got some lunch. We returned to the festivities around 2:00. We began by enjoying some beer and trying to ride some very wonky custom bikes. The bikes were so fun. There were two with wheels that wound all about the cycler, one which had an extra pivit on the frame so that the frame would swing around itself, one with big automobile tires, a two person bike in which the stearing was controlled by the peddling, a trike positioned backwards, a recumbant with the wheels that would wobble around, a bike with uneven axles and full suspension, one in which the frame was a huge spring and could pull apart and back, along with many others. I found that my ability to ride the wonky bikes increased proportionately to my intake of beers.

We met up with Sara Turbo and her friends Amy and Jeff, and had all kinds of fun talking, imbibing, riding bikes, hulla hooping, listening to the bands, throwing a frisbee to a dog, and the like. At some point, during an intermission in the music, there was a request for some volunteer contestants. Josh and I ran up to the stage, unaware about our role as contestants. Thoroughly inebriated, we learned that we would be participating in a dance contest. As the dude with the microphone gave us instructions, we discovered that we would not be dancing with eachother. I looked across and noticed that my dance contest parter was not the apple of my eye, but some other dude. I then proceeded to make a complete fool of myself along with sixteen other people, in front of several hundred.

At 7:00, we went to a locally-owed theater and saw Little Miss Sunshine over some turkey sandwiches and chips. By the end of the film, Josh and I both felt like we had hangovers, and it was 9:00 in the evening, presumably before most parties even get started. I went to bed at 9:30 on that Saturday night after such an epic day. A day which was filled with so much joy and fun that today my facial muscles are sore because of all the smiling. For more photos, a good 119 to be exact, please see my flickr page.

Posted by jennifer at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)