Bike Geeks

Christopher phoned me this afternoon at work sounding a little dejected. His bike broke on the way home today (luckily he was on our street when it happened).

Poor Christopher has to bike to his NY Bar exam prep course everyday (except when it rains and I give him a ride). It is so cute to see him ride off each morning with his backpack overflowing with books. He is the only one in the class (of ~60 people) that rides a bike each day. His first week a girl saw him walking in with his bike helmet and exclaimed "Don't tell me you ride your bike all the way here! Wow - that's so good". The next few days he noticed a few more bikes in the bike rack, but that was short-lived and now Christopher gets his choice of the prime bike-locking slots.

Anyways, today Christopher's rear derailleur made a nose-dive into his spokes. So I left work early to pick him and the broken bicycle up to be repaired. We took his bike to *exactly* the type of store one would want to have their bike repaired.

As soon as we walked in, one-by-one sales and service people came by to check out the bike and comment on which parts they all thought were salvageable. They were really into the whole thing - which was nice to see, but I couldn't keep myself from thinking these guys were taking this whole thing a little too seriously.

At one point, Christopher's bike was hanging from some repair stand thing with 3 guys crowded around inspecting the carnage. One guy kept asking Christopher all sorts of questions, determined to figure out how it happened. And unlike most bike shops I've been to, these guys were trying their hardest to keep the price down. They almost winced when they said that it was going to cost $90 to fix.

This was probably the best bike shop I've ever been to. I'm looking forward to our next trip there to pick it up :)

Chi-town

Last week I was in Chicago for work. People often say that Chicago and Toronto have alot in common. I can see some of the similarities. It is very clean and the Magnificent Mile is quite similar to Bloor Street.

There's also no shortage of great restaurants there. I had a nice meal at Frontera Grill as well as my new favourite restaurant - Shaw's Crab House. A place that serves seafood, has a fabulous oyster bar, and makes great sushi as well - I couldn't ask for anything more!

Surprisingly enough, I didn't get the opportunity to savour some Chicago deep dish pizza, and a Chicago-style hot dog. I'll save that for my next trip. Like I said - no shortage of great restaurants!

While in town some old colleagues of mine made the trip in from Naperville, IL to have dinner with me one night. The traffic in Chicago would put Toronto to shame, so I truly appreciate them making the trek in to see li'l ole me - thanks guys! And Chris's friend M was in town just for the day to attend the telco trade show I was working at, so that was a nice surprise as well.

Bean-town

This past weekend Christopher's friend G drove down from Toronto for a weekend visit. We don't get many house guests, so I had fun playing hostess.

On Friday night Chris & G headed out to Foxwoods to play some poker. And on Saturday G mentioned that he had never been to Boston, so we decided to drive in for the evening.

Christopher and I have lived in Connecticut for almost 10 months and we hadn't been to Boston once in this time! On the other hand, we have been into NYC a bunch of times.

Boston is a beautiful city. We drove to the Boston Common, parked there and just wandered around. The city has so much character and charm. We started off in a nice part of town filled with some high-end shops and hotels. Then we headed back through the Common to Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall Marketplace. And after that we walked to the North part of town, filled with so many little Italian restaurants that all look like they could be my next favourite hidden gem.

On the drive back G was going through the CDs we have in the car - which are mostly mine since Christopher is riding his bike to school this summer:

G: [picks up my Jesse McCartney CD] Who is this, Paul McCartney's son?
C: [laughing] No G, don't do it!

Ouchie!

I have a canker sore in my mouth right now and it's driving me nuts! These things totally suck. I think I have really low tolerance for oral pain. I seem to remember a lot of complaining and feeling sorry for myself whenever I had my braces tightened... And don't even remind me about my wisdom teeth - I was KO'd for over a week.

Christopher did a little online research about some things that have been linked to causing canker sores. One of the things he found was that a foaming agent in toothpaste, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS), has been known to cause canker sores (or aphthous ulcers) in people.

He then decided that I *might* be one of these types of people and headed off to the drugstore to buy us a new type of toothpaste - sans SLS. (yes I know, this guy will do anything to procrastinate from studying for the bar exam! I can't say I blame him though - I've seen the study materials, 6-7 books each with at least 1000 pages - yikes!)

I guess Christopher was tired of hearing me complaining about my canker sores yesterday and was kind enough to head back to the store to buy me some Anbesol (an oral anesthetic) to numb my pain. I have never used it before, but I have to say that it works fairly well. The only down side is that it wears of super fast.

The day when these things are all gone can't come soon enough!

Why is spinning in the dark?

First off, I'm not one of those super-hardcore spinners that wears the spandex cycling shorts and the clip-in shoes to spinning classes at the gym. However, I have on occasion frequented a spin class or two...

One thing about spinning perplexes me - why are spinning classes done in the dark? The only thing I can think of is that since spin classes are almost always setup in a semi-circle fashion, this means that some of the participants end up facing one other head-on.

My experiences with spinning have always had me getting quite the workout - sweating a fair bit and probably making funny faces as I agonize over the sprint sections (those always kill me - way more than the hill climbs). So, I'm thinking that spinning is done in the dark so people don't have to be self-conscious about others looking at them directly when they are struggling to climb to the top of some imaginary hill...

I guess having the room dark could also help spinners focus on the exercise and not the others in the class. And for the true cycling enthusiasts, maybe the darkness helps them picture themselves on the road or in a race? Plus, unlike step aerobics, there is no safety concern with having the class in the dark.

The other thing about spinning is that the music is fairly loud. This leads me to my final hypothesis about the dark beat-pumping classes - mystique. These blackened bass-filled spin classes make the workout seem like more than it actually is - pedalling a stationary bike!

I mean, as far as bike riding goes - the stationary bike has to be as boring as it gets. To jazz it up, they lower the lights, pump up the tunes. I've even heard of some clubs that have disco balls in their spin rooms as well as black light and glow in the dark bikes - sheesh!

Spinning is great in the winter or on a rainy day - but on good-weather days, a real bike ride outside (on a bike that actually takes you somewhere) is tough to beat.