kentcowgill.org/blog

So it was a little troublesome, but I think it was worth it.

If you look carefully, you'll see (at this point) a single new post from April of 2001 in the archive section, or if you click on "Older Articles" enough times to go back that far.

Just some background for these posts, since I'll be editing them a bit to 1) format them using Text::Textile) syntax, as well as 2) capitalizing words properly⁸. I had just signed up to ride in the 2001 Canada to US AIDS Vaccine ride - 415 miles in 5 days, and was blogging about my training and fundraising. Back then...

1. My wife Lisa was only my girlfriend.
2. My road bike (Univega) was brand new.
3. I was about to be laid off from a startup internet company.
4. Most of the links I've linked to were still active.
5. I had more of my pictures on the site.

In my editing, I will clean up broken links. I'll also try to re-upload all my old pictures to my new photos directory and link to them once I do that. And lastly, I'll remove most of the references to my fundraising activities and pleas for donations, since the ride has been over for almost 6 years. In case you're interested, I raised $7,080 in donations for the cause. I only rode about 245 miles due to overuse injury (RSI) to my achilles tendons. (Note the plural).

Hope you enjoy a little blast from the past. I certainly enjoy the memories.

⁸ I used to refuse to capitalize letters. Partly due to laziness, partly due to an extreme dislike of CamelCased variables, partly due to the fact that humans tend to be able to more easily visually distinguish between different lowercase letters than capital letters (or so I think I read somewhere). Since then, I've decided to drop the convention. I'm not 100% certain why - maybe due to the rest of the world and their treatment of the capitalization of letters :)

Ok, once again I'm burning the midnight oil trying to digitize the whole of my experiences on the ride. Or at least the 11:30pm oil. Whichever.

So I've put up the beginnings of my journal, but please keep in mind that I'm typing this stuff out as fast as I can!

I've also starting putting captions on my pictures because I suppose I just felt like doing a lot of typing ;)

Enjoy for now, and I'll post more when I can :)

Ok, maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't. (I won't chastise you for not checking my site every day since I've been back ;) I've updated a few things, and (perhaps what you've REALLY been waiting for) I've started adding some pictures. So far, I've got about 27 up, around 50 to go. Phew. And because it's late, I'm tired, so I didn't have the time to add descriptions.

Never fear, as soon as I type out my journal (which will be cake compared to futzing with all these pictures) - I'll add the descriptions to the pictures so you can tell exactly what the fuzzy things are you're supposed to be looking at ;)

Enjoy for now, and I'll continue to toil away :)

One word: incredible.

I'm currently working on transcribing/converting my journal and my pictures into electronic format, and as soon as I do, I'll have a new section of the site to give you the play-by-play.

Sadly, the exhilaration and exuberance of last week's ride has been offset by the horrible tragedy in New York on Tuesday, 9/11/01. My thoughts go out for the victims, the survivors, and the friends and family touched by this heinous act.

I've been taking it easy the last few weeks so I don't burn myself out before the ride. The last time I put in some major miles, I went out with my friend Keith again and rode as far north as we could. We got up to the Naval Academy in Great Lakes, about 15 or so miles south of the Wisconsin state border. There was a pretty seedy-looking town there... broken beer bottles all over the sidewalk just outside of the entrance, hole-in-the-wall bars and tattoo parlors. Needless to say, we didn't stay long - we just turned around and headed back :) We decided to swing west on our way back and rode through - you guessed it - the Botanical Gardens for a familiar ride back home. 68 miles.

The next week, I attempted to ride to Wisconsin (I swear I'm still going to do it!) - but got rained on, rather heavily, for a good ten miles. I was soaked and didn't think ahead to bring any of my rain gear with me, so I just hung out at a Starbucks and waited for Lisa to come get me :)

As far as my training is going, it's ok, but not quite where I'd like for it to be this close to the ride. I rode 51 miles last saturday with a friend I met through my chiropracter - he saw my fundraising poster in the office and asked if I wanted to go for a ride... and of course I did. We went up to the Chicago Botanical Gardens, which I've done a few times before, but at least this time I had some company. It was good to go with another vaccine rider because he really kept me on my toes - not too many rest stops :) The coolest part about that ride was that we left from our neighborhood - I didn't put my bike on my car to get it to the start of the "trail".

The day after that, I met up with my friend Lisanne and her daughter Evelyn and did pretty much the same path, only fewer miles - we drove our bikes to the trailhead instead of riding through the city like I did the day before. Total of about 34 miles that day. We even saw a family of deer on the way back! Starting out that day was ... interesting ... We parked in a parking lot I'd never been in before and decided to do some off-roading to find the trail. No such luck. After going through wood chips, dirt, mud, and over a few fallen trees, we finally landed about 15 yards from where we went into the woods. Oops :) We rode down the road a bit and found a real entrance to the trail :)

And of course, I've finally made all my travel reservations. I'm leaving for Montreal on the 4th of September, and flying back to Chicago on the 9th. Hopefully I'll be able to ease my sore rear into the airline seat! I've got my hotel room booked at a hotel near the airport, and I've made reservations for shipping my bike separately to Montreal. Now I just need to make sure I have enough gear! Clothing, tent supplies, a waterproof gearbag - you name it, I need it! :)

Ok, that part about my ribs hurting? Guess what - I have a broken rib :/

On a more positive note, my real ride website seems to be up, running, and stable... thanks to XO communications, my DSL line is finally working again. If you're rambunctious enough, feel free to even sign my guestbook :)

So about that rib. I was in a whole heap of pain earlier this week, but it seems to be feeling a lot better. I feel comfortable riding my mountain bike on the roads, but my road bike is probably a bit too stiff and bumpy on the roads for my comfort. Fear not, I'm still putting in some fake miles on my stationary trainer - I did 10 today to just see how things went - and everything seemed ok.

So for the time being, I'm just going to ride my mountain bike to work, make a few excursions on the way home, and keep the road bike in the trainer. sigh

My DSL line is still down, but I think turning 30 (happy birthday to me!) motivated me to get out on my bike a little more. For instance, my mom sent me my birthday present via FedEx, which of course refused to leave the package without my signature. So I took the opportunity to ride my bike to the fedex station... 12 miles round trip. And the folks at FedEx were kind enough to buy me a bottle of water for my return trip :) Ok, so I'm a bit of a revisionist when it comes to history. But they were kind enough to take my dollar to the back of the warehouse and use it to buy me some water :)

Speaking of that particular bike ride.. I really wanted to ride my road bike, but guess what - it had a flat tire. As I had limited daylight, I didn't bother to see if it would hold air; I just hopped on my mountain bike. When I got back, I pumped about 50 psi into the tire and 5 hours later it seems fine. I've heard of slow leaks and bad patches, but this is ridiculous. That tire was fine for at least 35 miles - what happened to all that air?

I just rode 55 miles this past saturday.

This week was particularly fun; I drove to Winnetka with a friend, where we joined up with a group of riders that (I think) refer to themselves as "playa del lago" or something like that - or at least that's the name of the mall where they depart from. It was a nice, rolling ride through the streets of Winnetka, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Lake Bluff, Lake Forest, and a few other towns that I can't recall.

My friend, Warren, and his dad, Mike, and I finally turned around about 6 miles shy of Gurnee, primarily because Mike had to get back to town. The way back was beautiful - we found a route that went through some lovely neighborhoods - it felt like we were riding through peoples' back yards. About an hour after turning around, Mike turned up the steam to get back as quickly as he could, while Warren and I meandered around a bit more. We wandered through Fort Sheridan, a cool little town that used to be an army base - with all the original buildings still intact! All the officers' quarters had been turned into homes, and we couldn't tell what the barracks had been turned into - but they were huge!

Warren and I took a few rest-stops along the way because we were really getting tired. We finally made it back about 6 hours after we set out, and boy was I sore. I could hardly move the rest of the day and most of Sunday, but I think it was well worth the effort - riding with a group seems to be a great way to keep myself motivated!