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I am still taking it all in; this race was completely amazing. We had 45 total racers, a huge number compared to our usual turn out; so many men in drag, so many ladies kicking butt, so much fun! The amount of sponsors we were able to get on board made the prize give away a blast – everyone who won something was totally stoked. And the food. Oh my god the food. SUSHI! VEGAN COCONUT CAKE! Green Central Station brought an unbelievable spread.

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Congratulations to all our winners! Alan was first for the guys, Elizabeth was first for the gals. Maaike won the Po Campo bag for best dressed among the ladies – check out that fancy necklace! Rishi won the Chrome bag for best dressed among the dudes. The competition for that prize was tough, but as you can see below, he really did it up right. Stuffed what needed to be stuffed and all.

HUUUUUUUUUUGE thank you to every who donated, volunteered, raced, hung out, gawked. Also thanks to the photographers who shared the photos for this post – Virginia Jones and Mary Lou Davis. Some others that the Bici crew took should show up sometime soon.

This race was the best. Be sure to visit our sponsors and say thanks!

Cahaba Cycles – http://cahabacycles.com/
Church Street Coffee and Books – http://www.churchstreetshop.com/
Charm – http://www.charmonsecond.com/
Chrome Messenger Bags – http://www.chromebagsstore.com/
First Avenue Rocks – http://firstaverocks.com/
Green Central Station – http://www.localgreencentral.com/
Naked Art – http://www.nakedartusa.com/
Po Campo – http://www.pocampo.com/
Primavera Coffee Roasters – http://primaveracoffee.com/
Sarah Johnson, Massage Therapist – http://www.sarahjohnson.massagetherapy.com/
Urban Cookhouse – http://urbancookhouse.com/
Urban Standard – http://www.urbanstandard.net/
V Richards – http://www.vrichards.net/

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I finally got the commuter bike I have been dreaming about: Schwinn Cream. Saturday, which happened to be my 32nd Birthday, I picked her up from Bicycle Michaels. After 2 days of riding I am in love. Fenders, rear rack, upright position, chainguard, single speed…yes, yes, yes.

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Bicycle Michaels was really helpful and fun. The salesguy there told me “today you got a new bike and a bike shop”, how cute is that? Oh, and all the guys in there were kind of dreamy in a bike shop kinda way. I digress…

My only complaint so far is that my panniers have a hard time attaching to the rack, which is curvy and has nothing to grab onto at the bottom. I am working on figuring out a solution, or perhaps will paint my old rack and put it on there.

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Aren’t she and I cute together? I don’t have a name, but am working on it. Ingrid is a top runner. Any suggestions are welcome!

Lookie! It’s the Bici Coop 3rd Annual Ladies Alleycat! Per usual, men must wear skirts to race.

Event will start and end at Rushton Park. Registration starts at 1:30, race will roll out promptly at 2 pm.

Route around downtown Birmingham (not over the mountain), lots of great prizes for all sorts of things so everyone has a chance to win. After the race we’ll have a picnic in the park hosted by Green Central Station – lots of great food and lawn games will be provided.

We’ve got some AMAZING prizes from:

Cahaba Cycles - http://cahabacycles.com/
Church Street Coffee and Books - http://www.churchstreetshop.com/
Charm - http://www.charmonsecond.com/
Chrome Messenger Bags - http://www.chromebagsstore.com/
Naked Art - http://www.nakedartusa.com/
First Avenue Rocks - http://firstaverocks.com/
Piebird Design - http://piebirddesign.com/
Po Campo - http://www.pocampo.com/
Primavera Coffee Roasters - http://primaveracoffee.com/
Sarah Johnson, Massage Therapist - http://www.sarahjohnson.massagetherapy.com/
Urban Cookhouse - http://urbancookhouse.com/
Urban Standard - http://www.urbanstandard.net/
V Richards - http://www.vrichards.net/

A huge thanks to Green Central Station for partnering with us for the after party and providing the bulk of the food and beverages. Some food will also be provided by Urban Cookhouse.

Going to be the best thing ever! YAYAYAYA!!!

Recently one guy said something to the effect of “you’re saving a lot of gas riding, that’s smart!” and I replied, “and I’m staying healthy too!”. His response to that was “oh, believe me I noticed that”, then I smiled and pedaled away. I think I got his attention because of the whole hot lady cyclist ass thing, but he also recognized that biking makes sense, and maybe he came away from the conversation thinking that biking  might be a good idea for him to try sometime soon too.

Anyway, these experiences always remind me of a song from Danielson called Rubbernecker.  The video that was made for it is pure gold, so here it is in all it’s glory for you to enjoy.

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I love my commute. Anyone have any particularly interesting (read: hot) sights on their commute?

Thanksgiving eve, my date and I decided that maybe we should ride the 23ish miles to his families Thanksgiving dinner. We were pretty excited, as we are hoping to ride to NOLA in the Spring.  The day of, it was rainy and gross all day…up until about 20 min before we wanted to leave.  We hurriedly got ready and hit the road 35 min later than we hoped.  We have 1.15 hours to get there.  The ride got really pretty once we were out of the city, but we were mainly on big, busy roads.  A little stressful but luckily the traffic was light.   It was a beautiful, fun way to spend the day.

The residential area was my favorite part of the ride.  Families out walking off their lunch and leaves falling everywhere.

That speck up front?  That is J, crushing it up the hill and I struggle to stay upright and not die.

After being off the bike for 8 weeks, I was weak.  3 hills, 2 which were longer than 1.5 miles long, about killed me and toward the end I freaked out on J with a bit of frustrated yelling (I later apologized). I crawled up one of them and cried going up another, but refused to give up!  I stayed on the bike and we made pretty good time, considering. We arrived just as the sun was setting and the entire family was there…to see me walk in red faced, sweaty and gross.  They applauded us, and we ate plentifully.

Then we got a ride home. It was a great day and I am ready to do that ride again.  Next year!

My date and I decided to ride over to the botanical gardens for a picnic and a nice walk around.  He’d never been there before, but it is one of my favorite places in Birmingham. It’s so wonderfully woodsy and green, with a great variety of gardens and trails to venture through. A great alternative to a backyard, with much less work!

We spent a few hours wandering around, which was a bit of a challenge in our clipless shoes. Eventually, we decided to hit the road for our next stop – cupcakes and ice cream, hell yes.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a good before picture; we were a little too excited about our delicious booty to even think about documentation. After devouring, we hung out for another hour waiting for our milky sugary food to digest before heading back. Our trip was a short 12 miles, but it was perfect. We got home just as a storm hit.

Another reason I love my cycling life…the boys at Bici.  Seriously, they are awesome and we have a great time with them.  They are dedicated, hard working, funny and pretty damn good looking. 90% of the time it is just them and us, and while it took Anna and I some time to get used to it, we all get along just fine.

They say things like “wicked bike”, we say things like “Aaawww, that bike is so pretty!”.  We make dirty jokes alongside them and they wait to make sure we are safe when locking up the shop.

We sometimes find ourselves calling them “our boys”.  I love it.  Thanks guys!!

photo from here.

A great weekend!  Rode all over the place…to the top of a parking deck (and back down…motion sickness…), to a brewery for a special friends and family July 4th party, to church(es), the farmers market AND farm, Jazz in the Park, lunch, and just around town.  I can’t remember the last time I rode this much just to ride.

How was your weekend?