An Egg-Strodinary Ride!

Back in the day, I rode with the Central Jersey Bicycle Club.  During the winter, one of CJBC's Sunday rides involved pedaling about 20 miles to a rural fire station and joining the firefighters, as well as what seemed to be everybody in the village, for an "all you can eat" breakfast.

A popular platter was the "Fireman's Special", which included a couple of pancakes; a couple of pieces of bacon, sausage or some other unhealthy meat; a couple of eggs in whatever style you prefer; and, it seemed, whatever else would fit on that plate.

The food wasn't the greatest, but when you're riding on a cold morning, you tend not to be picky. (Also, it was dirt-cheap:  no small consideration when you're a poor college student, as I was!) Besides, the point of the ride seemed to be, more than anything, camaraderie, with CJBC riders, the people of that village, the firefighters and anyone else who got up early on a cold Sunday morning.

Since then, I've gone on other rides that have included breakfasts, weekend brunches, lunches or other meals.  Sometimes, I'm sure, the food actually was good; other times, I was hungry or simply enjoying my time riding and the company of others.  I can guarantee you, though, that no ride of mine ever included food like this:

It's All About The Spectacle--And Food!

Sometimes sporting events aren't only about the event itself.  Rather, the event becomes a platform for all sorts of communal rituals and spectacles, if not outright marketing.

The Super Bowl, which will be played tonight, is the perfect example of that. Two out of every three Americans, according to one poll, plan to watch the game. Of them, 45 percent don't care which team wins.  

Part of the reason why so many people have no interest in the outcome of the game is that they don't have a rooting interest in either the Denver Broncos or Carolina Panthers,the two teams that are contesting the match.  Another, possibly more important, reason is that many will not be watching the game as football fans:  They are attending or hosting Super Bowl parties in their or friends or family members' homes, or in sports bars.  

Really, the Super Bowl has become like another holiday that is an excuse to get together with friends and/or family to eat, drink and let loose.  Just as the American holiday of Thanksgiving has such traditional foods as turkey with stuffing and pumpkin pie, Super Bowl Sunday is associated with chicken wings (barbecue or Buffalo style), pizza, tortilla chips with guacamole and beer. 

Also, plenty of people will watch the game to see the halftime shows and, most of all, new commercials that will debut.  On one hand, it's distressing to think that some of the greatest and most creative minds in this country are employed to sell colored sugar water and cars that will be in landfills long before they are paid for.  On the other hand, the commercials can be fun to watch because they are imaginative and sometimes whimsical or, on occasion, beautiful.

So why am I talking about the Super Bowl Spectacle on a bike blog?  Well, I am reminded of the hoopla surrounding the stages of the Tour de France I attended (including the finish of the 1980 edition).  People camp out along the route and spend the day cooking and consuming all sorts of foods and, of course, drinking.  They play music, some dance; everyone is in a good mood.  Before the peloton whizzes through, caravans of Tour and team sponsors' vehicles roll by with various floats in tow.  Music streams from those vehicles; some tow stages on which musicians and dancers perform, or screens that flash scnes from the previous day's stage of the race.  And, from those trucks, vans and cars, drivers and passengers toss all manner of schwag to spectators:  keychains, mini-dolls and such with teams' and sponsors' names on them; one even threw packets of Mini-Babybel cheese nuggets!

Ah, yes--It's always about the food, isn't it?   Just like it was on a bike ride the Central Jersey Bike club used to run on winter Sundays (including Super Bowl Sunday) to a rural firehouse.  The ride itself was pleasant and calming, though not challenging, even for those riders who were in their mid-winter doldrums: about 50 or 60 kilometers round-trip, as I recall, through flat countryside.   

The real "event", if you will, was going to the firehouse, where they had all-you-can-eat pancake breakfasts for three dollars, if memory serves.  You could also have all of the coffee, tea, orange juice, scrambled eggs bacon, sausage or ham or hash browns you wanted. Being young and poor, I was usually hungry, even before riding, so that breakfast, I mean ride, appealed to me.   

I'm sure other club members, as well as many of the local people who went for the breakfast, were also there to fill themselves up for not very much money.  But for them, and for us, it was a social event as well:  We talked, we gossiped; some of us boasted and made challenges, but we came together for a comforting meal on a cold day.  Then we got on our bikes and rode back to Highland Park, just as the locals got in their cars and went home.   They--and we--would return for the next pancake breakfast in the firehouse, just as many people will, today, return to familiar haunts with familiar faces and consume familiar foods and drinks, the Super Bowl on a screen as their background.

A Bicycle, In A Ceremony For Two

It's been a while since I've been to a wedding.  I guess I'm just at an age in which most of my friends, acquaintances and colleagues are already hitched (whether through marriage or other means) or have simply resigned themselves to not, or have written off the idea of, being so.

I've never been to a bicycle-themed ceremony.  However, I did once go to a reception for two of my old riding buddies from the Central Jersey Bicycle Club.  They got married in a very small ceremony that included only their immediate families.  They held their reception outdoors, in a public park, on a gorgeous day around this time of year.  I, like many of the other guests, arrived on a bicycle.

Although they invited me, my appearance surprised them.  It wasn't the fact that I showed up:  I had promised I would, and unless other circumstances intervene (Is that phrase open to interpretation, or what?), I keep my word about such things.  And, even though I was young and did a lot of crazy things one associates with youth (and, I admit, excessive consumption of alcohol and an overflow of testosterone: now I can blame almost all of the jejune excesses on them!), I didn't do anything stupid or gross.  

What shocked them was my wheeling into the park on, if I recall correctly, my Trek 510.   All of the other club members who arrived on two wheels lived nearby--or, at least, within a half-hour ride or so.  On the other hand, I had moved to New York.  So, by the time I started eating the barbecued chicken and hot dogs and drinking, I think, Beck's (Microbreweries were in their infancy, so all good beer in those days was imported.), I had pedaled about 40 miles.

Granted, that wasn't a long ride for me or anyone else who rode to the reception that day--or for Ed and Elaine, the honorees. But they were nonetheless impressed.

I don't recall any bike-themed decor at the party. (Let's call it what it was!)  But, apparently, there is something of a vogue for it at weddings today.  If I were to attend (or--egad!--have) nupitals, here's something I'd like to see:

Hey, I could even get away with putting those wheels on my bikes!  At least, the colors are right.  And in a wedding, colors are everything.  Right? 

Would these folks have approved?

 

The Longest Day

Today is, officially, the first day of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

That means every place north of the Equator will have more hours (and minutes) of daylight than on any other day of the year.

Not surprisingly, many rides are scheduled for this day in order to take advantage of that fact.  I have participated in such rides.  In fact, the first remains, to this day, the longest one-day ride, in terms of distance, I have ever taken.

I rode with the Central Jersey Cycling Club while I was a student at Rutgers and for several years after.  I even rode with them when I "visited" (It's kind of weird to say you're visiting your native country.) the US (i.e., family and friends) while living in France.  I did my Longest Day ride during one of those visits.

That's what the ride was called:  The Longest Day.  And, trust me, it lived up to its billing.  Through fifteen hours or so of riding, we encountered blistering heat and sun, gravel, a thunderstorm that reverberated and flashed across the West Jersey farmland, dirt paths that turned to mud, more heat, a sudden downpour and various combinations of these things.

We began at High Point at dawn. As the name indicates, it's the highest point in the state.  It stands near the point where where three states--New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania---meet. All are visible from the top, where an obelisk to commemorate the war dead was dedicated in 1930.

If your idea of the Garden State comes from The Sopranos, 
Jersey Shore or the stories you've heard about Newark, Camden and suburban sprawl--or seeing the state's current governor (not to mention a few in the past), the ride would have dispelled such notions, even when you thought you were too tired to notice anything.

The ride took us to Cape May, in the opposite end of the state from High Point.  Someone claimed that it's the lowest point in New Jersey. It may well be the lowest land point, at 10 feet, but every guide I've seen lists the Atlantic Ocean--which roils against one side of the Cape--as the lowest.

So how far did we pedal?  According to the Huret Multito odometers some of us used--the state of the art in measuring distance in a day when the first cycle computers were being developed--we covered 234 miles.

I haven't ridden with the CJBC in years.  I must say they haven't lost their penchant for ugly cycling jerseys!  You can only wear such a thing on the Longest Day, when you're too dirty and sweaty to care, or for anyone to notice how hideous it is.  The jersey I wore on my ride was just as bad as the one on the club's website!