04.12.08

Beagling in Bellville

Posted in Fitness, Travels at 8:40 am

Lunch time!

I’m ahead of most of my friends, so I’m waiting around to eat with them.

So far all is good, my main ride partner has been Kristen, James’ girlfriend.

Just before lunch we hit some hills, nothing tough, but I realized how much I like climbing. I was pasing everyone in high gear.

The beginning of the ride was a bit frustrating for the faster guys, which doesn’t include me really. It takes until the first breakpoint to separate the chumps from the champs and to scatter everyone. In the meantime, you got these cyclists who are completely passive aggressive and get mad at people who hang on the left, and rightly so sometimes. But shut up with the abide comments!

The GPS is tracking but I’m low on battery and when I lose intenet access in the middle of nowhere, things shut down.

Ok everyone is here, see ya!

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04.11.08

Howdy from Houston

Posted in Fitness, Travels at 6:34 pm

This is a test post from my phone. I have some bugs in my tracker program but I think I figured the quirks out.
Houston is a hellhole. I can see why this ride is FROM Houston and not TO it… Nobody would want to participate! The most epic part of the ride is leaving this dumpster of a town, and hopefully not returning for a year!

In all seriousness, we’re stocked and ready to go, and James’ bike is phenomenal! See ya early in the morning!

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04.10.08

American Airlines Tries to Put Damper on MS150

Posted in Sports, Travels at 9:24 pm

There’s nothing quite like getting an e-mail from your airline that says “CANCELED” when you’re on your way to the airport.

Then again, you weren’t surprised, since you’re flying on an American Airlines MD-80, which has been grounded due to someone forgetting to use the proper colored tie-wrap.

(changing to first tense) So I went home while getting American Airlines on the phone and checked my options. Fly into San Antonio with another airline? See what American could do for me? DRIVE for 20 hours halfway across the country?? (Yes, I was willing to do this since all you donators [who will be thanked later]) didn’t pay money to see me get stuck in LA!

Finally, I got a nice young woman on the line, and explained to her that I’d love to see if I could get flown into Austin by Friday or Houston by Saturday, but would need to fly out of Austin regardless. Feeling the confused expression on her face, I explained the bike race, the Multiple-Sclerosis Foundation, and was generally flexible and charming (I only have about 10 minutes of this superpower per day, and wisely used it then).

She then booked me on a non-MD-80 flight to Dallas, after which she’d get me to Austin tomorrow 3 hours before our bus leaves for Houston. Perfect!

Little did I know that this wonderful woman also booked me on first class! So while 250,000 travelers are stranded, I’m sitting there flying to Texas in first class with a glass of wine, a real meal, and plenty of legroom! Thank you so much random customer service representative - Let’s get married!

Not wanting to get stuck in Dallas, I rented a car and drove to Austin.

So greetings from Austin, fortune has lied in our favor and we’re ready to ROCK!

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02.19.08

Riding the 2008 MS 150 From Houston to Austin: Help Donate!

Posted in Fitness, Sports, Travels at 6:00 pm

Hey everyone!

On April 12, I will be joining the MS 150, a 2-day biking adventure from Houston to Austin to help raise funds for people living with Multiple Sclerosis.

The path is roughly 165 miles long. The 2008 tour map isn’t out yet, but you can see the 2007 map here.

I need to raise $400.00 to the MS Society to ride. Please help me by donating a few bucks to my MS150 fund.

In return for your donations, I promise to work very hard and finish the race (barring any major catastrophes).

Most of you know that I’m a swimmer and not a biker. In order to learn more about the hardcore training that bikers go through, I’ve been reading Cyclist’s Training Bible by Joel Friel. It is for bikers way more experienced than myself, but I enjoy the technical and scientific aspects of the sport.

I’ve been training along the South Bay Bike Path, which gets extremely interesting once you make it past the airport and into Venice Beach. For hill work, I will begin going to parts of this Palos Verdes Peninsula path.

Thanks for your endless support!
berto

PS: I am going to be taking a break from writing for a while. My past few articles have received a great amount of traffic, and I should ride that momentum, but I have too many projects going on for now. I’ll be back later, feel free to contact me.

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08.08.07

Weekend in Portland - Mountains, Beer, and Guns

Posted in Travels at 9:30 pm

A couple of weekends ago, I visited my brother Nick in Portland. It was a dominating weekend consisting of mountain climbing, beer festival drinking, and gun shooting — and in that order too, but with time to sober up in between!

I flew in on Thursday, checked out my brother’s awesome house, and then headed over to Last Thursday, which is an art festival in the Alberta District of Portland. Portland was just as goofy and full of hippies as I had remembered from my trip 3 years ago (album 1, album 2… note the night of album 2 was quite interesting).

On Friday, we had some delicious Thai food in downtown Portland (this city has by far the best Thai food), and then headed on over to Saddle Mountain, which is a relatively easy-to-climb mountain with some incredible views. After walking with Nick for a bit, I cranked up the tunes and turned up the mountain.

Saddle Mountain was my first-ever summit, and to be honest with you, it might be my last. I do not like cliffs, and I do not like the possibility of falling down one. Now that I’m at sea level, it seems fine, but I was definitely apprehensive up there. Perhaps this is part of the rush, but I think I’d rather hang out in the water or the sand.

On Saturday, we headed to the Oregon Brewer’s Festival, which had some incredible beers! My favorite two were Golden Valley Brewery’s Red Thistle Quercus and 21st Amendment’s Watermelon Wheat, which wasn’t too melony but had just enough to be dangerous.

After a day of drinking 8% beers, we headed to Steve’s house to enjoy a delicious dinner cooked by his girlfriend Adrienne. It wouldn’t be a trip visiting Nick if I didn’t get to hang with Alex, who I seem to bump into in every interesting mid-sized town (Portland, Memphis, Austin).

After a 12 hour drinking streak, what’s the next thing to do? Naturally, you scrape yourself up and go shoot guns! We headed over to an outdoor shooting range in Vancouver, WA, and tested out a glock. I completely sucked, but it was extremely fun after getting the hang of it. I plan on owning a few guns someday, and it was a great introduction.

Our time in Portland was incredibly busy and ridiculously fun - Thanks Nick!

See the full photo album here.

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