missing july...and the rapha cycle club

People were out in lawn chairs, grills and coolers set out along with friends and lovers as the bus lurched and chugged past Pelham Bay Park; and as I looked out the window, I thought it almost odd that, for possibly the first time in my life, I am looking forward to the end of summer.
Odd because for any cyclist, the summer is definitive of, well, cycling. The more competitive time it just right, to peak at whatever optimal time they’ve chosen, the more laid-back take advantage of the long daylight hours to ride until 9pm, and everyone spends July - my birth month, coincidentally - talking, watching, and obsessing over the Tour. Everything buzzes during the summer - on and off the bike - and doped up on Vitamin D, able to ride without multiple layers and/or beards, everyone seems that much happier.
But I’m still looking forward to the end of it all. Because I’m going to miss it.

Yeah, I know, there will be other Tours. There will be other summers spent watching recorded stages on various couches, shrieking at the screen or asking incessant questions about the racers. There will be summers where I can build up miles and hours spent in the saddle and go on lazy, random, evening rides. Yeah, summer’s still going to come around once this one’s done, I know. But there is something I’m going to miss, and even the fear fueled by a test meant to kick my ass and put my brain through a blender for three days isn’t doing anything for the disappointment I’ve been feeling about this one.
I’m referring, of course, to the NYC Rapha Cycle Club.
A pop-up shop meant to open [officially] on July 3rd, with an invite-only party on the 1st, it’s been talked about since what feels like forever ago. And with the official press release email going out last Wednesday, I felt justified in visiting the new space on Bowery this past weekend on a long overdue trip to NYC.
Not that I asked Rapha if I could visit the space, or go inside, or talk to the [super nice] guys that are working on getting it ready. Neither did I really have authorization to do any of the above from Portland. But maybe implied permission isn’t so much of a stretch when your boyfriend happens to be the newly hired Manager of the Rapha Cycle Club.

I remember this time last summer, talking about bikes and design and everything else in a small apartment on the Lower East Side. Mike jokingly said that we should ask Jeremy how to land his job, “but in New York.” I think I said that I’d fight him for it. Fast forward a year, and Mike seems to have managed - albeit temporarily - just that. Since the beginning of the month, he’s been telling me about the new space, what it’s going to look like, and even the potential list of scheduled events. And in between Contracts and Criminal Law, I wished I could be there.

Not that I’m going to miss it all [the pop-up shop is open through September]. But the party I somehow managed to officially get invited to, and the month of July is time that I’ve resigned myself to miss. Given that books have mostly replaced bikes by this point [other than my commute, I’ve gone on one measly hour-long ride in the past three weeks], I’m almost too busy to be disappointed. Or at least that’s what Mike’s been telling me, in a sweetly considerate attempt to divert my focus from all the awesome stuff he’s currently putting together with the rest of the Rapha crew. But that doesn’t mean all this stuff isn’t going to happen. It is. But hey, what can I do, right?
Which is one reason why, if you live in the city or make weekend trips down there, you should check it out. With a coffee bar, TVs, and a giant table to just hang out around, it’s slated to be more than just a retail shop peddling its wares for a few months. Rapha Continental riders will be there, I’m sure, as well as limited edition somethings, and if that’s not enough for you, I’ll be there in August, too.
But really, that should be more than enough. So unless you’ve got a bar exam or two to take, do me a favor [pretty, pretty please], and don’t miss July at the Rapha Cycle Club.

a superb visit

Bar exam study has been keeping me away from bikes, but on the verge of going insane, I escaped to Superb yesterday afternoon for a well-deserved break.

Ahhh bike porn. The day got even better when Jason showed me his new Land Shark road bike. With vintage Time pedals...!

Of course, the sick Geekhouse with powdercoated rims to match was his, as well.

And perhaps my favorite thing I saw there...

A few hours later, I headed home to try and apply the above attitude ["even faster, even faster!"] to studying. That didn't work out so well. Still, it's good to know where to go whenever I need a break that involves cool bikes, awesome stuff, and stellar people.
Superb, I'll be back.

turn left at kissena

“You’re Japanese, you have to do it.”
It was the default nationality reasoning, which, when you happen to be Japanese, gets applied too often to activities that normal people just wouldn’t choose to engage in. Raving? Cosplay? Zentai? Yup, yup, and yup [and no, I did not do all of the above].
But this time, it actually sort of made sense. For once, it wasn’t linked to sexual perversions, a big step in and of itself when you’re talking about being Japanese. It was something that, while there might be quite a bit over overlap between the fans/spectators of uniquely Japanese fetishes and this activity, I found kind of cool. Something that would probably still elicit surprise in Japan if I ever admitted being into it, but vanilla enough to enable one to talk about it openly [loudly, even] in public.

I am, of course, talking of keirin, or track racing.
A sport that, in my home country, is more famous for its status as a betting sport and doesn’t allow women to race, I never thought that I’d end up on a track on a random Sunday in June. I saw it coming, unconsciously, maybe, acquiring a taste for bicycles, dropping bank on a track bike that consequently terrified me, and choosing to spend a winter developing some semblance of balance on the rollers. But “working towards getting to a track” and “getting on a track” are two different animals. I could waste endless hours on the rollers and never touch a banked velodrome.
But cursed with the kind of friends who think that I could “do well” in certain activities that involve physical exertion and a bicycle [never mind if their logic is rooted in my unchosen ethnicity], “riding my track bike around” just wasn’t cutting it. Mike insisted I get on a track. Jared kept asking me when I was going to show up to Kissena. DS was included in plans to accompany me to Kissena one day in sunglasses, mustaches, and matching tracksuits with “SHIMURA” emblazoned on the back, a rising sun beneath it.

With two single-speeds - one a legit track bike - absurd costumes aside, it seemed like a good plan. So when Jared told me about Kissena’s Women’s Track Clincs, I poked around their website, and just in time, signed up for the last 3 hour clinic last Sunday. I BikeReg’d for my first ever event, felt sort of cool because of it, and then proceeded to spend most of Sunday morning repeatedly telling Mike how nervous I was while he got ready to ride in the support car and otherwise do really cool stuff with DS for the Danish team in the TD Bank Philadelphia International Cycling Championships [yes, I was uber jealous]. He told me I would be fine, that DS said I would kill it, gave me a kiss, and left, leaving me weakly pointing at my bike, on the verge of pooping my pants, yet again.
A few hours later, I was sitting in the middle of the first track I’ve ever been to, watching as experienced riders switched out cogs and chainrings, sprinted, and circled. A few minutes later, Joe - the main instructor and organizer - showed up with loaner bikes, and more clinic particpants filtered in. In all, about 10 women showed up, ranging from 10yrs old to 40. All were experienced in racing in some capacity, and I was thoroughly intimidated.

We first rode around the track, getting used to the banked corners, and learning how to use gravity to launch into a 200m sprint, where to stay on the track and how to pass others. After a drink of water and a few minutes of rest, we were then put in a giant pace line.
And that’s about the time when I started to get my ass handed to me. Mostly by a handful of tweens.
Due to my nonexistent pace line skills, and riding behind the probably 8yr old brother of one of the younger girls, I managed to get dropped, then linger in no man’s land for about FOUR FUCKING LAPS. Struggling to pull the rest of the line back to the front, I didn’t so much blow up as slowly putter out from pushing against the wind for what seemed like forever. I heard Jared’s voice in my head - “hey, at most, I’ll only be 399m ahead of you” - and then the wind gusted again.
The pace line broke apart, we drank by-then hot water, and rested before doing individual sprints, lead-out sprints, telephone pole jumps and power bursts, concluding with mock races. By the individual sprints, my legs were pretty much done. Of course, I apparently still had to go around and around the track, attempting to muster up some semblance of speed, while the wind treated us to billows of yellow sand from the baseball diamond adjacent to the track. By the time we were through, my jersey was marked by chain grease [from flipping my wheel] and patches of brownish-yellow sweat where I had wiped the sandy sweat from my chin. My glutes hurt and the sheer thought of climbing up 5 flights of stairs to Mike’s apartment with a bike over my shoulder - much less the ride back from 42nd St - made my head swirl.

I made it, though [an almond butter sandwich helped]. Brakeless, even. I had pulled out the cable in my front brake once I had arrived at the track and failed to put it back in properly. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in myself when I left; even though my riding has recently been limited to my commute, I expected to be a little stronger. I didn’t notice until halfway to the Main St 7 stop that riding brakeless was sort of coming naturally, and that I was totally okay with it.
Rain hit me around 27th St, but feeling bad about pulling out Mike’s Rapha Stowaway with my disgusting hands, I considered it a free shower and toughed it out. I made it up those stairs, jumped into the most awesome shower in recent memory, tried to study for the bar and ended up passing out in my underwear instead.
I woke up to stories and pictures of the Philly race, indulged in a delicious brownie made by Mike’s mom, and passed out yet again, dreaming of turning left at Kissena.

pedal strike, esq.

It was Saturday, and tummy full of breakfast eaten with the family, we were killing time before the planned IKEA run.
“You have another thing in common with Pantani,” I was informed, “you both love karaoke.” Then, “...Oh my God.”
From Mike’s new iPad came the streaming sounds of an Italian song. He had found a gem of a Youtube video, from 1996, when Pantani, injured from a tangle with a car and told he might never walk - much less ride - again, sung the Giro theme.
We played it at least three times in a row while Pantani transported us to whole other world of awesome. And between the first and second time, I commented that that video made my weekend, that it was even better than my graduation.

Because on Friday, I officially became an Esquire. Or at least an almost-Esquire [I think I’m allowed to at least put the J.D. after my name]. I had rolled out of bed, put on mascara, squeezed into a dress, ran to a bus in heels, and wore a polyester gown for two hours in the heat to pick up an impressive[ly big] piece of paper. And to be honest, it was sort of anticlimactic. We lined up alphabetically, walked, listened to speeches, and, well, graduated. And like that weirdly surreal feeling of stagnancy I felt after I finished all my exams, I didn’t quite believe it had happened.
Instead, I’ve felt a lingering disappointment. Like Pavlov's dog, I’d waited too long for this day for it possibly measure up to my expectations of freedom, universal love, and world peace. After three years, I'd even managed to get tired of salivating.
Maybe it’s the impending bar exam and the fact that I have about 10 weeks to memorize 20+ subjects condensed into three consecutive 8 hour days of testing, and the knowledge that I’ll be missing most of this summer. The Tour, my bikes, even my sanity are preparing to hide away, replaced by sheer terror and parental expectations to pass what a friend endearingly called “the most important test of our lives.” I am fucking terrified.

But my panicked moments of nausea-inducing fits of bar-related anxiety aside, my graduation was less than exciting. Not that I expected it to be; I had grumbled that I didn’t even want to go, that if my family hadn’t insisted on flying in, I wouldn’t go. Memories of the past three years are, at least as they relate to law school, marked by mental breakdowns, therapy, and acne.
All of which led me to believe - in part because it was easier that way - that none of it really mattered. I had clung to that belief because otherwise it felt like I had failed at something significant enough to measure my worth. And crazy as I am, even I didn’t want to believe that. So in the middle of winter I had purchased a bicycle. I stayed in school, made some new friends who preferred to live on two wheels, and found a man who, when I told him that I wanted the past three years of my life back, told me he could give me back one. I was skeptical, but I think he just may have.

After the ceremony on Friday, still in my unflattering gown, I had squeezed past classmates scouring the audience for their families, past proud parents taking pictures, to touch Matt on the arm. In our silly caps, we gave each other big smiles, and hugged tight. Because I had found him, too.
And unlike grades, transcripts, and classes, that mattered. That was really, really worth it.

sweating changes

I am a creature of habit. Or at least, I strive to be. I like to unconsciously stumble to the bathroom and reach for my toothbrush with most of my brain still asleep. Have my feet lead me to my computer to turn it on while I boil water for coffee. Grab a mug from the cupboard on the right side of the sink, my hand knowing exactly how high to reach without a visual guide, much less conscious thought.
All of which meant that I was slightly afraid to wake up this morning. Because after three years, I’ve moved.

Not to a different, exciting city, not even to a different zip code. I schlepped my stuff [with the help of a few movers] a staggering ten blocks, two bikes in tow and more clothes than one girl should ever really own. After unpacking 80% of my things, pacing in an unfamiliar room, it finally hit me that things are changing - like really fast - and the anxiety crept up like that super commuter that hangs onto your wheel in all of his glorious neon. The one you can’t really seem to shake, making you be all like shit, is this really happening?
Unfortunately, [for me,] it is. My bar review course has started [before graduation!] which means 8-10 hours of studying a day, six days a week. Which wouldn’t be such a huge deal if I wasn’t so used to being so goddamn lazy, rolling out on 2 hour rides whenever I wasn’t expected to be in class. And trying to figure out how I was going to get those precious minutes and miles in, between studying and unpacking, I’ve been staring at my rollers with a mixture of relief and exasperation. Thank God I have those things so whenever I have time, I can jump on the bike and really savor indoor riding in the summertime!
It doesn’t help that I’m on a fourth floor apartment now, currently with no AC. Because it is fucking hot outside, people. A few days ago, I did a sweaty 2 hours in the saddle, inhaled lunch, went to meet my law school bestie for coffee, got nearly knocked out by an iced Americano [my first this year], and then almost passed out later. As in like fainted, not like spontaneously fell asleep as I'm prone to do. I forgot how much I suck at dealing with heat, even if I spent at least half my life in swelteringly humid Tokyo summers.

All of which led me to purchase a neon colored drink yesterday in an attempt to restore the electrolytes I was losing. Wait, don’t [mis]judge. I am not one of those people who insist on keeping protein powder in their library carrel because studying really flexes that big muscle in your head and obviously you need 100 grams of protein every other hour to keep that engine running. I just sweat. Like a lot. More than can be deemed normal or sexy; once temps hit 23C/73F+, I start not only feeling, but actively looking like turkey jerky.
So electrolyte supplements are sort of making a delayed entrance into my life. Mike’s a big fan of Nuun, and I love how you can carry it with you and only use it when you need it. I have two packs of Japan’s infamous Pocari Sweat and curiosity finally getting the better of me, I bought a sample pack of Vega Sport. But after my recent discovery that anything sugary quickly translates into acne [gross, I know], I’m a little hesitant to rely on any powders or shakes or what have you. Yeah, yeah, I know you can mix up a little ghetto fabulous electrolyte drink by mixing salt in a glass of water but I’m just not that into drinking straight up salt water on my rides [yet].

It did occur to me that the Master Cleanse formula of lemon juice, water, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper might do the trick as well. Might even make my rides a little more caliente. And then I realized I would probably end up on my hands and knees on the side of the road, gripping the grass or gravel with my hands while I tried to hack ground pepper out of the back of my throat. That is not caliente, even if I was in full Capo.
But like my incompetent fumbling with the hot water in the shower yesterday, which I’m confident will soon turn into an unconscious flick of the knob to get it just the way I like it, I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Hopefully harden up in the process, too. Because I have a date in a few weekends that’s going to involve a few good hours sweating. And passing out is probably the last thing I want to do.

drawing new [tan] lines

“Nice size 36 shorts,” Mike said as he tugged on the back of my jeans shorts. The waist gaped open.
With a little wiggling, I probably could have slipped out of them without undoing the fly, but convinced that a wash would cure it all [I’m pretty sure it didn’t], I insisted that they were just a little stretched out. Besides, being a little too big for me also meant that the legs were a little longer. Almost long enough to cover my tan line.

“Is that your tan line?”
“...Yeahhh...Wow. Damn. Yours are so nice.” Jared had pulled up his shorts and pressed his thigh next to mine.
“Well, someone’s gotta be!” He laughed as I protested that my shorts were not optimal for clean-tan-line-creating. Andy just shook his head and told me that I had to ride more.
Which is true. But, in a way, I’m still sort of convinced that my Pearl Izumi Sugar Shorts aren’t going to give me the kind of tan line that makes your thigh look like it was taped off, then spray painted with tanning lotion. Being a touch too big, the padding would sometimes catch on my seat, making me stumble awkwardly. Despite the gripper elastic, the legs would creep up during my ride, too, blurring that melatonin tattoo attesting to solid time in the saddle. Never mind my jeans shorts, I needed new cycling shorts stat.

Enter Capo to the rescue. After seeing the review of the Cortina jersey, the super nice guys at Capo offered to send me a matching pair of shorts. I wanted to virtually hug them.
Let me back up. Having worn the jersey on more than a handful of occasions, even without extensive jersey experience, I can say that it is definitely super comfortable. The pockets are made of full Lycra, and while there are only two, they’re deceptively deep. Extremely soft and form fitting, there’s no flap-age, reducing the jersey to something you just don’t have to think about while you’re riding. It even passed Coach DS’s zipper test [if you can unzip it with one hand easily - no biting the collar allowed!], and the guys appreciated the attention to detail, like how the label isn’t just screened onto the Lycra. Even my fairly critical, style-conscious sister commented on how nice it looked.

All this meant that I had high expectations for the shorts. I mean, I know they’re going to look good; but Capo’s set the bar high in terms of functionality as well. When I received them, I jumped out of my jeans and immediately tried them on. The first thing I noticed was the segmented padding [ignore how phallic it looks, please], which meant the Diaper Effect was significantly reduced. The padding is comparable in thickness to my Pearl Izumis but it felt sleeker and more efficient. No more feeling like I was sitting on a Maxipad - we’re in tampon territory with these babies.

Not to mention the crossover waistband that is a godsend to those with Lycra muffin tops. It’s so thin, too, that there’s virtually no visible line under the jersey...and that jersey doesn’t hide much. My only initial doubts stemmed from the elastic around the legs; instead of gripper elastic, the shorts use a thin, slightly stretch-resistant compression elastic. The shorts clutched onto my keirin thighs and I wasn’t sure if I was going to lose circulation in my toes as a result.
But like the jersey it matches, the shorts look really good. It's dark enough that you don't have to worry about looking chubbier than you are [and what woman wants that when she's in full Lycra?], and in a weird way it almost deludes you into believing - truly believing - that you're bringing sexy back [to the bike]. Maybe I was just in a good mood, though.

But potential sexiness aside, I was concerned about how it would stand up to a decent ride. So I suited up and clipped in to drag the Cross Monster out on an easy 30 miler.
When I sat down on the saddle, my first thought was, weirdly enough, that it was slippery. The next thought was that I could definitely feel the saddle underneath me, a lot more than when I’m wearing my other shorts. Not in a bad way; I was just more conscious of it. There was no need to rock back and forth trying to figure out where my sit bones went. For once, I knew exactly where they were and I had them right where I wanted them.
To be honest, after those first two revelations, I hardly noticed what I was wearing for most of the ride and had to force myself to concentrate on whatever signals my butt was sending to my brain. The one thing that really stood out, though, is that these shorts will not budge. The compression elastic around the legs that I wasn’t so sure about wasn’t uncomfortable or distracting while riding; in fact, they held everything down and refused to creep up. There was no adjusting or pulling down because white skin was emerging from the bottom of my shorts. Unless I forcibly pulled them up or down, those things weren’t moving. At all.

Which meant that when I came home tired and happy, and peeled off my gear, the longer Capo shorts had already left a sharp, clear tan line. Like the kind that looks comically fake but has turned into a point of pride for those of us who are obsessed with bicycles. Never mind the fact that my thighs now legitimately look like candy corn, and that mini skirts might be out of the question for the rest of the summer. Those shorts are going to make me look pro, even without clothes on.
And really, what more can a girl [on a bike] ask for?