Cycling, Cycling, Everywhere!


I grew up cycling everywhere. Floral Park was a community where children had bikes and rode them to school, friends houses, the park, for recreation…pretty much everywhere. Then I went to college in a less than hospitable climate for cycling — Rochester, NY. Don’t get me wrong, Rochester has been evolving into a bike friendly city for the last decade or so. It was just that the idea of riding a bike to class, to the store, or just for the sake of recreation never sounded appealing. Snow/Ice storms and sub-zero wind chills have that affect on me. Come summers I’d be back home in NYC catching up with old friends or on the road visiting my girlfriend Cathy. When I finished college I slowly got back into cycling. I picked up a new mountain bike and started recreational cycling for the first time in seven years. Shortly after purchasing the mountain bike I discovered tour riding. Not competitive but long distance rides; 40+ miles a day. After doing a couple of tours on the mountain bike I quickly learned why so many people used road bikes for distance riding. Mountain bikes might be great on the trail and damn near bullet proof but you’re carrying around a ton of weight to make them durable and smooth riding. After a couple of hundred tour miles on my mountain bike I decided it was time to pick up something better suited for tour riding. A year ago today I purchased my first road bike, a Cannondale CAAD9 5. The bike has been sensational and it’s made tour riding even more fun! This summer I plan on doing lot’s of cycling — riding in several tours (I’ll throw up a post about some of the tours I’m doing sometime soon). Since cycling has become one of my primary recreational activities I decided it was time to add a cycling section to my website. It contains some useful cycling links and I’m slowly building up a database of ride statistics and maps thanks to a great free service named Strava. Although I’ve only tracked a couple of rides with Strava it already has me in the mindset to improve my stats thus pushing me harder. Of course I’m not just about the stats. Those lazy leisurely rides are some of my most relaxing moments. Like a stress reboot. Well, enough for now. See you on the streets!

Photo: Bicycle by the bay by Christopher Schiffner
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