i have NEVER wanted to compete in a bicycle race before. the thought of it just seems ridiculous. bike distances? for what purpose? but when i came across the utah tour de donut, it made me really think twice about it. yes, it is a 21 mile bike race. but here’s how it works:

1) bike 7 miles. stop. eat as many donuts as you want.
2) bike 7 miles. stop. eat as many donuts as you want.
3) bike 7 miles. finish.

that’s not all, for every donut that you eat, you get to subtract 3 minutes from your total time. this is all surface street biking, too, so it should be relatively flat. but a race where you are forced to stop, take a break, and eat donuts? man, if ever someone wanted to motivate me to enter a race, that’s the way to do it.

it is completely unlike me to move unnecessarily. i firmly believe that that’s why remote controls were made. i still remember the day when we had to walk up to the tv and turn a knob to change a channel. ridiculous, i know! and then it was all the rage to have a wired remote control. man, those were the days.

but with digital media, the thought of having to pop a tape in to watch a recorded tv show is gone and to be liberated from the confines of physical media and its limitations are just great. it’s too bad that there isn’t an easier and faster way to rip blu-ray discs so i won’t have to deal with those anymore, but that’s a story for another day.

today is bike to work day. at least, it is in the bay area. there seems to be some discrepancy about when bike to work day really is. apparently the league of american bicyclists officially holds bike to work day on the third friday of may.

so anyway, today’s bike to work day and i heard it on the radio yesterday, so i decided to go and try it out. according to the bike computer, my commute from home to work was: 22 minutes, 4.44 miles averaging 11.9 miles per hour. it was actually a longer than expected commute because when i first left the house, i turned around after a block to go and fill up the tires with more air. then, while biking to work, a very distressed woman who was looking for an address asked me for directions. though i didn’t know where she was headed towards, i tried to help her, pointed her in a direction, and then went ahead. i found the address she was looking for, double-backed, and gave her some better directions and tried to comfort her. she, apparently, was headed towards a much needed job interview and got lost walking around.

google maps says that my route without interruptions should be 3.6 miles and it should take me 11 minutes to drive there. the problem with biking on surface streets for me is that i don’t know how to bike at a leisurely pace. i always end up pushing myself harder than i should and as a result i get all sweaty. but anyway, it was a good bike ride to work, i might consider biking to work more often. it, of course, figures, though, that bike to work day is on the hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures forecasted to be at a high of 99F today. ugh, i am not looking forward to the bike ride home.