goodbye to the rapha cycle club

I bounced down the stairs, my just barely covered feet soundlessly skipping down the smooth stone stairs, shoes in one hand, the other alternately hovering over the banister and pinning the Rapha bonk bag, borrowed from Mike, to my hip. A thought occurred to me that I might very well crash head first into one of Mike’s neighbors given that I was stealthily flying down the stairs but I arrived on the first floor without so much as a self-conscious hello. On the first floor, one shoe in each hand, I hopped on one foot, then the other, securing shoes onto feet. One last look and sigh at the bonk bag - it obviously didn’t match - and I pushed open the door to the windy yet humid night.
Once outside, I teetered down three final steps, feeling slightly awkward and embarrassed. I paused for a moment, pretending to look inside the borrowed bag, and fixing my hair. I was in black, three-inch stilettos, a short, black pencil skirt, which, I’d discover by the end of the block, was a size too big, and a blue and pink patterned silky shirt. I had earrings on, and it was the first time in forever that I’d cleaned up, dressed up, and put on lipstick.
But given the occasion, I felt it was appropriate. It was Thursday night, the last day of the month of September, and we were all saying goodbye to the Rapha Cycle Club.

For the past few weeks, Mike had informed me of possible plans for the closing party, but it had always seemed somewhat surreal. Like my denial that summer was over about three weeks ago, it seemed like the Rapha Cycle Club would still be there, even after September 30, 2010. I would be able to just drop in, say hello to regulars like Ben [of the babelicious BH-Garneau team]and Fritz, get some killer Americanos made by RJ, and make fun of Cassidy. It was a place I occasionally ate lunch, watched the Vuelta, parked my bike before weekend rides, and met up with Mike after I got out of work. But in the last few weeks of September, it seemed much more than the collection of my admittedly shallow experiences. It had been a place that, within its short life span, had simultaneously drawn in seasoned cyclists and converted others into cycling fans. It was a place that elicited exclamations of disappointment by more than a handful of people that they hadn’t discovered it sooner, as well as hopeful suggestions by regulars that maybe Rapha could keep it open for just a few more months. On paper, it was a large pop-up shop with a coffee shop and two huge flat screen TVs. But in that huge space, at that large, glass-topped table or in the spaces between the racks of jerseys and shorts, we all seemed to find exactly what we had been looking for.

And too soon, it was 7pm on Thursday, September 30th. I strode down the block [it’s impossibly to simply walk in stilettos], across the street, and over two doors to the glow of the Rapha Cycle Club. Half the table had been pushed against the wall, Bryce was DJing near the cash register, and the broom wagon had been converted into the bar, the kegs tucked neatly inside and served in appropriately pink cups. Bikes were stacked two rows deep against the wall, and familiar faces swum among unfamiliar ones, all bordered by white t-shirts [hand-screened by Mike] stating “R <3 NY.”
Judging by the attendance, it seemed like NY loved Rapha too. The cyclists that you’d want to show up to your event to legitimize its authenticity were all in attendance, including Ben, Bravo, Sam, and CJ. [Kyle] Peppo showed up a little time later along with DS and Andy, while a fair number of girls balanced out the Y chromosomes in the room. Skull Krusher regaled us with hilarious stories, as always, and people kept seeping into the room. We talked about injuries, recent crashes, racing, when I’m going to get that road bike, and, sometimes, what was going to happen after the party - and the NYC Rapha Cycle Club - was over.

Maybe we all didn’t believe it, or maybe we wanted to be part of a really good send-off, because I’m pretty sure all of us had a lot of fun that night. The fact that we were losing a safe haven where we could watch the Tour and the Vuelta, watch movies on Wednesday nights, and sip coffee before taking off for a mid-week group ride, was put off until Friday morning. For the moment, we sipped beer out of plastic cups, laughed with friends, and swung hips to the beat streaming out of Bryce’s speakers.
When the beer ran out, people drifted outside and then to the after party, mostly by bike, some on foot. I sat on one of the stools, resting legs that weren’t used to walking and standing in such high heels, watching Derrick - the new directeur sportif for Rapha Racing - and Mike make plans for organizing inventory the following morning. I watched, as usual, Mike lock the door and pull down the shutter. We hailed a cab for Bryce, helped load his equipment into the back, then slowly walked home, Mike verbally unwinding the day’s events, sounding relieved that the weather had held, and that so many people had showed up. I nodded, trotting to keep up with Mike’s flat-soled stride, the reality of the closing not sinking in. Not yet, anyway.

A day or so later, I passed the space after work, the shutters down as Mike had finished with inventory for the day. “Glory Through Suffering,” it still said, and I remembered when Mike had gotten the vinyl decals made and rubbed them onto the gray metal. It made me sad, even if it was a little embarrassing to admit such a fact. It wasn’t as if Rapha was gone forever, but I couldn’t resist hoping that I could break in, drag that table to the middle of the room, and make everyone come hang out again. I glanced up quickly, just to make sure that the sign was still hanging outside the space, despite knowing that it would eventually be taken down.
I looked for that sign again, the following day, on the way back from a ride. It was still there, and I held back a sigh, harboring a selfish hope, however distant and unlikely, that maybe they’ll do it again here next year. That maybe Rapha might come back to NYC, and maybe even stay for a little bit longer, with Brett around for the entire thing, this time, so that we can repeat our memories. It was a silly thought [given that chances that it would happen were slim to none], but it seemed something worth hoping for.

rides and needles

I blame my childhood epilepsy for a lot of things: the parental prohibition on engaging in sports, the inability to climb trees and my subsequent complete lack of interest in traveling at any rate faster than a brisk walk. All of which could be explained by simple laziness, but the epileptic seizures and symptoms that quietly vanished along with most of the awkwardness acquired during puberty seemed like a good enough scapegoat. Epilepsy was to blame.
It did, however, teach me how to HTFU. The fact that I had to take medicine to control my seizures meant that I got my arm stabbed with needles every few months for blood tests. I detested them. The needle always seemed larger, wider, and more deadly than it actually was. The heavyset nurse - the nurse was always heavyset, usually with glasses and pale curly hair - would approach to poke a hole in my arm with that silver needle, a rubber tourniquet making my vein swell and pulse. I imagined the tip of the hollow needle as a gaping, sharp metallic tube that was at least 2mm wide. Enough that it couldn’t not hurt, no matter how brave I was. And as the nurse approached, dabbing the pit of my elbow with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol, I drew in a deep breath...and usually screamed.
At eight years old, I would consistently bawl in sheer terror. Given that blood tests happened too frequently to count, my mother probably found it both tiresome and secretly hilarious. By my teenage years, I had learned to contain the tears, holding my breath and looking away, squeezing my eyes shut because if I couldn’t see it, it might not feel so bad. That’s never true, but it helped keep the freaking out in check. Towards the end, I actually looked, and found the way blood gushed into test tubes fascinating. I still couldn’t look, though, when they slid in the needle or when they pulled it out.

It’s been over a decade since I’ve gone in for one of those tests, but the needle and the looking away, the way I could hear my heart beating in my head, and the slow exhalation when the deed was done has been coming back to me these past few days when I’ve managed to drag my butt over the river and to New Jersey. Actually there was more involved, like my loud ragged breathing and frantic spinning while trying not to pass out, and the other day, clinging onto a wheel knowing that that would be the only way I could possibly make it home in one piece.
Caught in the Rapha Wednesday ride a few days ago with Cassidy and Wei “Top Ten” Chen, I had no hope that I could keep up, much less make it to the end of River Road. I had tried the first climb [about a quarter-mile long] a few days before; and actually considered sitting down and nursing my legs at the top. But my solo ride yesterday turned into a group when I caught up with Cassidy and company on the West Side Highway. We were joined later by Matt - who raced with Lang back in Seattle - and Chris 2 from Velo. Our motley crew slid across the bridge and bombed down the sidewalk that leads to River Road, me mostly terrified and trying not to ride my brake but failing miserably. We would group together, then spread out, the faster guys flying down the descents and up the climbs. Hitting the first climb, Matt peeled off to start the climb from the docks on his single-speed. I made it halfway up in the big ring and then spun feebly the rest of the way, getting out of the saddle but staying in the drops the last 10 feet.

We dived down more descents, dodging some nasty potholes, while Chris and Cassidy laughed at how I rode like I was still on a track bike. The final climb appeared almost suddenly. Matt peeled off again to add another quarter mile or so to his climb. I looked up, and I ditched any thoughts of doing any part of it in the big ring.
“Just spin,” Cassidy and Chris advised, making it sound easy although my legs were incapable of moving at such a rapid pace, “and put your hands on the top of the bars.”
I tried, I did. But my body would curl forward like it didn’t want to sit up and the sensation of trying to “spin” in my granny gear but finding that some sort of mashing was also involved to get up a mile long climb was weird, for lack of a better word. The only thing I could hear was my labored breathing and since the jokes had died down, it sounded embarrassingly loud. Cassidy spun beside me, telling me that I was doing great and that I was almost there and I wanted to tell him that he should look into becoming a life coach but nothing would come out. I mostly sputtered, while flip-flopping between the top of the bars and the drops. I think I managed to spit out a rhetorical “seriously?” and even laughed when Wei - who had yet to break a sweat - and Cassidy pushed me up about 10 feet, their hands on either side of my back.
It got harder after that, though. The road curves deceptively, making the disappointment that the climb wasn’t over that much deeper every time I turned a bend. I gave up. Like the time BRC-IF guy paced the hell out of me, I stopped looking. I kept my head low, peeking at the 3 feet in front of my wheel and nothing else. I suppressed hopes that it would end, and just focused on getting up the stupid thing. Not that it made it any easier, but like those all-too-frequent blood tests taught me, in a pinch, not looking/voluntary denial isn’t such a bad strategy.

At the top, I nearly fell over. We stopped for a few minutes for a bathroom break and my feet were doing that thing where they quiver in my shoes. Cassidy suggested we all go up to the Palisades Marketplace, which was only a few miles away. To be honest, if I had been alone, I would have just headed home, but I’m a sucker for peer pressure so we went, Cassidy, Wei, Chris and Matt dragging my wheelsucking ass up there and then back to the city. In hindsight, my choice not to peel off was probably a good thing, as I probably would have died a long, slow death on the side of 9W had I tried to get home by myself [or been victim to the more embarrassing alternative: bonking and cabbing it back to the city].
Back at the Rapha Cycle Club drenched in sweat and crusty, Mike asked me if I would ever do it again, but I couldn’t really think. I just sat and looked at my legs and feet and told him I didn’t know. He asked me how the shorts were, and I remembered I had a new pair of Rapha men’s bib shorts on and thought about how I hadn’t noticed anything on my ride and even how my butt never got sore even though my thighs might be a bit wide for the extra-small. But hey, if I keep riding, they’ll slim down, right?

Well, probably not with the sheer amount of food I ate afterwards. But like I told Mike a later that night, that ride was the hardest thing I’ve ever done on a bike. That’s sort of embarrassing to admit, but the complete ass-kicking I got on Wednesday was also incredibly fun. It made me want a road bike even more [is that even possible?] so I that I could conquer that ride...or at least do it with a little more grace and maybe a tad less sweat.
Eager to fill that void in my life due to a lack of gears, I helped out for a few hours that same night at the shop. I had to cut my visit a day short and hustle back to Boston the following day, sore legs and all, but when I fell asleep Wednesday night, I was hoping I could do that ride again, one more time, before I became gearless again.

kissing with helmets

There was a fly in my room last night.
Giant and green, with some hints of blue. I have no idea how it got into my room, but it swooped around my studio, launching itself across the space between my eyes and my computer. Too lazy to try and kill it, I wished with all my heart that it would just stop mid-air and die. I sat there, willing it to either disappear or fall dead, annoyed at both it and myself for being startled by its occasional presence near my head.
And in the humid heat that was anything like the cool temperatures of mountainous New Hampshire, I almost reached for a rubber band. Just to try it out.

It’s a trick that I’ve seen Brett execute several times a day at the Rapha Cycle Club. Spotting a fly lurking around the coffee table, as I looked around for a fly swatter, Brett took a rubber band, took careful aim, and released. The band jumped through the air and bounced off the stagnant fly’s body. They fell one by one, dead before they hit the ground, one even severed in half by the snapping rubber. No splatter though, and the neatly bunched up corpses - iridescently pretty if they weren’t such goddamn pests - got snatched up in a napkin and quickly disposed of.

“What are you going to do when he leaves?”
It’s a question I’ve been asking for a while now. We all knew Brett was getting married in August, that he was riding cross country for his honeymoon on custom IFs, that he was going to leave the Rapha Cycle Club and wouldn’t be back until after it had closed. It all seemed surreal though; even on his last day at work, I still saw him hanging out at the Rapha Cycle Club. But a week after that we were driving up to New Hampshire in a rented Mini, up to Sugar Hill, New Hampshire where phone reception doesn’t exist, the climbs are impressive, the roads kind of shitty, and you can get the best pancakes, ever.

A pre-wedding ride was planned but with some heavy hitters on the invite list and still without a road bike, I sat out. I had imagined a blissful morning of quiet reading while Mike climbed around the mountains on his De Rosa, maybe an excursion into town later, which I imagined could only be described by the word “quaint” [“nonexistent” might be more appropriate]. The Mini dampened such plans for Mike, making arrangements with other wedding-goers further complicated by the whole “lack of reception” thing, so instead a lazy breakfast was consumed, and what do you know, we saw the wedding ride sweep past us just as I drained the last of my Americano at Wendle’s Deli. We waved, and DS peeled off the group and offered a trip into Littleton to do a little discovering with his wife [who is, as expected, adorable].
We watched gliders being dragged across the sky, then being released to float in slow circles and land silently. There was a bike shop next to DS’s hotel, in a converted barn, and what do you know, they even offered horse back rides. I caressed an inquisitive nuzzle looking for carrots, and heard the thudding of hooves in my head and remembered the feeling of flying.

And Littleton? World’s Longest Candy Counter. ‘Nuff said.
But back to the real reason we were there: the wedding. AND THE CAKE. DO YOU SEE THIS THING? Designed by Brett to perfectly match their custom frames, it seemed like everyone took out their respective cameras to snap a shot or two. We milled about, I completed my fuzzy picture of “cyclists that Mike always talks about but who I haven’t met yet,” and for the first time in forever, I saw Jared. In a suit.

And then I saw Jared officiate the wedding.
Casual in that it wasn’t stifling, and carefully written, the speech made the crowd laugh and the bride and groom were full of smiles as they exchanged rings. People cheered as they said their vows and all of a sudden Brett was married. The wedding bands were quietly impressive in their implied weight, the rose gold glimmering pink and radiating a warmth that’s hard to come by in normal gold rings.

As the sun set, hor d’oeurves were consumed, champagne sipped, then dinner plates piled high with Tofu Wellingtons, veggies, and couscous, paired with glasses of wine, and more champagne. Speeches were given after the obligatory tapping of the glass, and though at any other event - no matter how exciting - I would have been exhausted, I wasn’t ready to go home until the wind picked up, reminding us all that this was New Hampshire, not the humid pockets of Boston or New York.

So, yeah, that’s why marriage has been on my mind lately. And as Brett and Edie take off to pedal across the country from Portland to NYC, I’m wishing them all the best. But with a stellar wedding behind them, gorgeous IFs beneath them, and forever to look forward to, I’m pretty confident that they won’t need luck or well wishes. They got this.
Congrats, again, guys! And I’ll be following your blog...so post lots! See you when you get to NYC!

on getting dressed and the rapha continental

This whole thing is starting to get slightly dangerous.
I’m actually beginning to get used to being a completely useless slacker. I’ve spent more afternoons than I’d like to admit watching so-bad-it’s-good true crime shows and back-to-back Law & Order anything. If I’m going to be honest, the only reason I manage to get dressed before 11am every day is because Mike’s espresso machine has been collecting dust since the Rapha Cycle Club opened. I’m currently forced to put something on, walk down too many stairs and over two blocks to collect my morning Americano. Ridiculous, I know.

When the sense that I should be doing something with some semblance of productivity creeps up on me - “guilt” is too strong of a word to use here, I think - I’ve sought solace in my computer screen, attempting to find employment, catch up on blogs, or form my own densely muddied thoughts into words, sentences, or paragraphs. On one particular effort to re-educate myself on what the hell has been going on all summer while I was living under a rock, I found out that Velodramatic has been in France for most of July. In response, I kept my head perfectly still, glanced to my left and right, minimized Chrome and closed my laptop. Mental note made to read that later; sometime soon, I promise, just not now because the concept of Paris [Paris?...PARIS...?!] is a little overwhelming right now.
But despite the promise of vicarious vacays via Velodramatic, and the escape provided by the stacks of blogs and books to consume aside, I’ve still managed to spend most of last week watching and not so much doing. I watched as bags of gravel were shuttled into the Cycle Club, power tools taken out and new pictures hung in the gallery space. I spectated as graphics were laid out for the Rapha Continental gallery opening event Thursday night, and bikes were neatly positioned against each other. Rapha Continental riders themselves were in and out of the space from early Wednesday morning, and a little envious of all the activity buzzing around me, I offered to walk Rich Bravo’s IF - whose saddle comes up to just under my bra - from NYC Velo to the Rapha Cycle Club.

A few hours and a nap later - the latter is quickly becoming part of my everyday routine - I surprised myself by actually getting dressed in more than the Lululemon yoga pants that have turned into my version of what dirty sweatpants are to morbidly obese people. Jeans came out, plus a button down shirt, even a Rapha scarf...! I was pretty impressed.

Anyway, what was probably more impressive was the turn out and the presence of nearly all the framebuilders whose bikes were on display. IF, Igleheart, Seven, Bilenky...it was pretty cool to see the bikes and the people that made them, plus the guys who rode them, and people who are just into bikes in general. Though still in Step 2 of post-bar resocialization, which involves slowly learning how to interact with people on some sort of socially acceptable level, even I found the atmosphere totally chill and fun. And NO, I WASN’T COMPLETELY BLIZTED OFF THAT 40, THANKS.

Straight up sober, I still had lots of fun. I got to watch [among other things] Carey of Rapha [and Director of the Continental] climb into Kansas’ giant bag, met Skull Krusher [more on that later], and observed Cassidy’s attempts at pitching game. All of which made for a pretty solid Thursday evening. After closing up, we headed home where I finally peeled off sweaty jeans and shirt and passed out into the kind of sleep where you wake up feeling so rested it would be downright weird if you weren’t snoring the entire night.
And then I got up, clipped in on an amazing bike and went on a real road ride. More on that, though, later.

lowering the bar

It’s August, unbelievably, and somehow I’ve emerged from the past three weeks conscious, with some of my sanity intact, and done.
200 multiple choice questions, 5 typed New York state law essays, 10 handwritten Massachusetts law essays, 1 Multistate Practice Test, 3 Guayaki Organic Energy Shots, 1 5-hour Energy Shot, 4 days of living off almond-butter-pita sandwiches, and a trip to the extremely shady town of Schenectady, New York, all within three days totaling approximately 21 hours of testing later, I am officially finished with all that stuff that you get to do only after you graduate from law school. No more goddamn bubbles to fill out, no more depressing realizations mid-question that I was well on my way to what can only be described as “active failing,” no more being confined to a chair for at least 14 hours a day, day after day. The nightmares still, pathetically, pop up, but there’s the hope that they’ll eventually go away.

And what did I learn? That I’m capable of not riding my bike for over 2 weeks, that the Massachusetts bar probably wouldn’t have been so bad had I had more than 3 hours to study for it, that 5-hour Energy tastes like Robitussin mixed with Sweet N Low, and that post-bar, I am far from capable of interacting in any socially acceptable manner with anyone, much less go on a bike ride. That law school will never prepare you for this ordeal, and that at the end of it, you’ll end up feeling like shit, both physically and psychologically.
Oh, yeah, and as Ben was kind enough to inform me via Twitter, I even learned that I had missed the entire Tour. WHO KNEW?

And now there are bikes and friends and alcoholic beverages but I’m mostly just exhausted. I feel soft and gross and unhealthy. Riding a bike seems slightly foreign and the quick trip down to South Station from my apartment left my IT band aching again. It’s back to square 1, because, let’s face it, the stuff I’d been frantically cramming into my brain all summer had nothing to do with bicycles. Nor did it have anything to do with stringing words together to make somewhat coherent sentences and then publishing said sentences on the Internet. In short, my brain pretty much has that vacantly drained post-coital feeling if you took out all the good buzzy feelings and replaced it with someone repeatedly punching you in the balls [or, face, if you lack a scrotum].
So, yeah, I didn’t do much this past weekend. I packed my bags, got on my bike, hoped I wouldn’t kill myself on the way downtown, hopped a bus, and was at the Rapha Cycle Club in record time. It was Step1 in my efforts at resocialization, and though Ben questioned my choice of locale, it was comforting to know that everything was still basically the same. Nothing had drastically changed; the regulars were in attendance and the pastries and coffee were equally delicious. Conversations may have referenced the Tour, but they didn’t start with “Hal and Wanda got married in 1995. In 1998, they got divorced and Hal left a will that is going to fuck with your head for the next half hour.” And consistency [or lack of change], when it makes bar exams seem like bad dreams, is a very good thing.

So despite my own hopes of regaining my fitness or doing 5000 miles on my bike this week, I’m not quite sure either of those things are going to happen. But, you know, like passing the bar, there’s still a hope that they might.
And hey, at least I didn’t miss Shark Week.

rapha cycle club redux

Three more weeks and that feeling that I’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell when it comes to passing the bar is becoming more and more of an actual reality. And with this heat, “walking through Hell” isn’t so much of a simile anymore.
“Don’t lose your marbles,” Mike joked a few weeks back when I called him, sobbing and mostly hysterical.
“Marbles? I’ve only got one left,” I miserably told him.
I’ve been clutching onto that one last one; alternatively gripping onto it and misplacing it. And with the oppressive heat, it’s starting to feel less like a marble and more like the proverbial snowball, melting and dripping through my fingers. On a sauna-like, cramped bus headed back to Boston yesterday, I mentally cupped that snowball in my hands and wished it was back somewhere cooler and infinitely more comforting, where I could glue back the pieces of my sanity and iron out the wrinkles etching themselves between my brows.
Somewhere like the Rapha Cycle Club.

I know the last time I posted, it was about the same pop-up shop, and that double-dipping isn’t socially acceptable, even on the Internet [although, let’s face it, we all do it when no one’s looking]. But this time it was done and officially open on Saturday as the first stage of the Tour took off. And given that this past weekend was the last time I was permitted to laugh or otherwise crack a smile until after the bar, I took full advantage and headed down to NYC, Rapha, and a boyfriend.
And you know what? It was worth it. It really was. To be honest, I had my initial doubts and slight trepidations. Boyfriend managing the store aside, I’ve gotten shit for the Rapha-related things I’ve done; the smirks and comments on whether I really paid $70 for a silk scarf with cogs on it, the accusation that just liking expensive stuff meant that I didn't like to ride so much as look like I did, or that Rapha Scarf Friday prevented people from actually taking me seriously. The affiliation with Rapha suddenly became a lot more frustrating than I had ever expected, and came with baggage that, when I started this whole cycling thing, I never knew existed. Confused and embarrassed, in a way I blamed Rapha for leading me into this mess in the first place.

But haters are everywhere, and walking into the completed space, the Rapha Cycle Club is a lot more inviting than I expected, and completely devoid of the pretentiousness that people love to assume and hate in Rapha. There’s a long 30ft long wooden table flanked by jerseys and huge flat screen TVs on one side and a coffee bar run by Third Rail Coffee [serving Stumptown coffee in customized Rapha espresso cups and Blue Sky pasteries] on the other. Men’s jerseys and the women’s line flank the giant broom wagon sitting in the back of the space which doubles as a fitting room, but is also just fun to climb inside. A rotating gallery space is off to the left of the broom wagon and the limited edition t-shirts hang right next to the women’s jerseys and shorts.

Books, magazines, and newspapers are free to peruse and wi-fi means that laptops are in attendance. The floor to ceiling front windows provide ample opportunity to soak up your RDA of Vitamin D as well. A chalkboard up front has the Tour schedule as well as a race report written up by Mike of the previous stage [well worth the read and what will become, I’m sure, my primary source of info for what’s going on in this year’s Tour], and appropriately printed up on yellow paper. And because this is a shop for cyclists, there’s some awesome bike parking as well.
Surrounded by cool gear, and unable to resist, despite knowing full well I couldn't possibly afford it, I tried on the red Stowaway jacket in a size 10...and found that I somehow fit into a size 8 [the XXS]...!!! Other than fueling my vanity and making my weekend, it was awesome to know that even the smallest size allowed for slightly bigger hips. The jacket didn't clutch and cling to my hips like others do, silently implying that my butt is a lot bigger than it should be given my waist size. Admiring how it looked in the mirror, I mentally thanked Rapha for not judging.

But this is Rapha, a company from which we expect all the great little, meticulous details that other companies get points for. The space was going to look great; I knew that without even seeing the floor plan. I was hoping, though, perhaps selfishly given my own experience, that the Cycle Club wouldn’t be another reason why I should be that much more self-conscious about having done the things I have with a few scarves and a neck warmer [it was all G-rated, I swear]. And simply put, it was. For the first time since I started making friends who thrive on competition, I felt excited about being into bicycles, even if I still can’t do jack shit on one. I didn’t feel so out of place as I thought I would, and I even went back to hang out for longer than I really should have, every day I was in NYC.

I left there yesterday morning with a bidon, a bonk bag, one of the white limited edition scarves [thanks, Slate!], and even some new friends, sad to leave but the terror of the bar dragging my feet back to Boston.
“I’ll be back in August,” I promised.
“August?! Come back next week!” Cassidy said.
“I wish I could,” I said. And I really, really meant it.
[More pictures here...and make sure to follow them on twitter!]