Wednesday 25 April 2012

BAM 45km!

Just got home from a beautiful 45 km ride, now i'm sipping my yummy chocolate peanut butter protien drink. yum!
so yes beautiful day, great for a ride. i started out heading towards my friends place who lives out in the countryside west of guelph to drop something off fo them. gets good and hilly out those parts. i tried out a few new roads today. as a point dirt roads and paved roads look a whole latta the same in google maps. so ya. i hit a dirst road. but it actually wasn't that bad some of the roads in guelph have bigger bike eating pot holes. and plus dirt roads and bumpy roads are good for building up the butt callus. yes that's what i said. butt callus. there are points on your (and my) prosterior that are in regular contact with the seat. if you just start out biking. those points will be quite sore indeed. after a little while you develop "butt callus" your tooshie gets tougher and more able to handle the rigours of the road. butt callus, use it in a sentance today and get 5 points.

but back to the ride. so it took me 2.5 hours. no shabby. and thats with snack breaks and shaking fists at drivers breaks and pee breaks. oh pee breaks! i used my sneekee outside for the first time at the side of the road. how fricken awesome was it you ask? well it was pretty fricken awesome. important thing to take into account - which way is the wind blowing. yep i'll get better at that one.
and! i'm recovering from a cold so my nose was running like crazy, and i forgot my hankie at home. i can only sniff fos much before i start to go cross eyed (not good on a bike), so i did it. i did something that usually totally grosses me out. i shotguned. for those of you that live wonderfully sheltered lives shotguning involves covering one nostral (on your nose), and blowing like the dickens, shooting the snot out of your nasal cavities and onto the ground. charming isn't it. so i was desperate. so i did it and needless to say i need more practice and again the wind was my enemy. ew.

i took a new route from niska to laird, i cut though a subdivision. it was super nice riding. roads were quiet and really wide, no bike lanes but it didn't matter. man i wish all the roads were like that. then out to arkell i went and headed down watson to stone. now i didn't think it would be possible to have a section of road worse than victoria near york. but watson has taken the cake. yay for butt callus building. and again my beefs with random bike lanes that start and stop without reason and generally make no sense. on stone from watson to victoria there is an awesome bike lane. then as soon as you get into town (where there are more cars and the roads are narrower) the bike lane disapears. instead you get a nice soft dirt shoulder as wide as a lane of traffic. really how hard would it have been to continure that sucker into town. arg.

alright that's my rant for today. let's celebrate something. like fundraising awesomeness! you've all helped my raise $930.15, this is so incredable! and the peezees are going fast. act now for your first choice in colours. for more details click here for the facebook event.

have an amazing evening folks. wear your fricken helmet!

Sunday 15 April 2012

i love bears

it's true. i really love bears. last night i went to the tri-city bear meat at sizzle in cambridge, set up on my little bike trainer and donation box, hoping to get a few donations towards the rally. and boy are those folks awesome, all night long folks would stop by and chat to me and drop some change into my donation box. (sizzle is an awesome dance space btw) i started biking at 8pmish and kept peddling through to 130am (with a few pee breaks). what at awesome night, great crowd, sexy folks, great music, bears, did i mention i love bears. i must say the one liners you hear when ridieng a bike trainer for hours and hours at a gay bar are very different then the ones i get at the farmers market, a little more x rated and awesome. bit of a step up from the "well you're going nowhere fast" of the market. haha. not to mention i've never had my ass grabbed at the farmers market....

going to events like this are just one of the ways that being a part of the ride is helping me expand my comfort zones and learn more about myself. by nature i'm a shy wee person, i don't really like new situations, being by myself in new sitiatons, going places by myself where i won't know anyone. but every time i do it, everytime i do something i've nevere done before, go a pace new by myeslf,  i realise it usually will work out fine, and can acutlly be really fun. not the aniety inducing event that i make it out to bei in my brain. oh brain you do exagerate soemtimes. there there it's ok. i can be fun, outgoing and sociable, even it situations where my brain tells me i souldn't do it cause i'm a shy wee person. don't get me wrong my stomache was in knots on the drive over there, but ya everytime i go someplace new, i grow a little. expand my ideas of myself and what i can accomplish and retrain my brain to think i'm capable of more than i think i can do. hey i can ride a bike for 5.5 hours, not feel super aweful the next day my body amazes me sometimes. 

oh and all those amazing folks dropping their pocket change into my donation box donated 237.15. see when everyone gives a little it can turn into something amazing.

thank you all again for your support you keep my legs spinning and my wheels a'turning.

Thursday 12 April 2012

first training ride done!

so after work today i decided to go for a wee ride. i thought 40km would be a good starting point. and i had already mapped out a decent looking 38km ride last week.
i must say what a beautiful evening for a ride. i got started around 630pm and as i made my way out to the feilds and farmland that surround guelph the light was just incredible. all gold and warm feeling, which was good casue i was in my bike shorts. i did think to put on mitts though that was a smart move. so this was a new route. i thought i had it easy and could use all my routes from last year, but then i remembered that i moved. so the kms are off. arg. but that's ok new routes are fun. this one was quite hilly, for the first half. ah guelph -latin for giant f'n hills all over the place. many a time i remembered that "oh shit" feeling i get when i look up to see a nice long steady incline. but hills did end up being my forte in the actual rally last year. i have yet ot find a route with less than 3 intense hills. and silly me each time i hit them i try to do them faster. but the ride went well. i got home just as the sun was going down. very pretty.
one thing i ddin't have was my trusty waterbottle backpack thing. it was packed away and i have no idea where it is. i must find it. i really hope it's not in one of the "random" boxes of stuff that was packed at the end and is just a mishmash of lots of stuff. i'd really like to find it before saturday. casue this saturday as you can remember i'm heading to the Bear Meat at sizzle, with my bike and trainer to try to drum up some donations. i'm sure it'll be a great time. well shoot i'm knackered. hense why this blog is slightly train-of-thought-disjointed-like so i'm off to bed.

Monday 9 April 2012

Amazingness of amazingness

first off that last blog post, i forgot to make go live.... so it's a little late and out of order but there it is.

So awesome news! Peezee the makers of the Sneekee stand to pee device, are super amazing and are going to let me sell their product as a fundraiser. so this is amazing for a number of reasons
1- the product is awesome
2- peeing standing up is awesome
3- you could get one, AND donate to an awesome cause all at the same time

so what is a skeekee and why is it awesome.
what it is: it's a stand to pee device. check out thier fb page, to see what it looks like.  it's device that makes it super easy for anyone to stand to pee without even taking off your pants!  i found it really easy to get the hang of.

why it's awesome:
-no more need to squat in the bug infested woods, just unzip. no pesky skeeters biting your special places
-dirty roadtrip washroom? not a problem. no more hovering over the yucky seat.
-so easy to use
-they fold flat! easy to slip into a pocket or purse (or man purse)
- they come in colours other than purple! (thought you can get purple if you like)
-you can write your name in the snow!(if we ever get snow again...)

who it's aweome for:
-outdoorsy folks (bikers, hikers, campers etc)
-people who travel
-people who really don't like public washrooms
-people who have always wanted to use a urinal
-folk festival hopppers
-farmers
-you!
-etc

i know you're thinking "how do i get one of these amazing devices?" well that is easy too! simply go to my sponsorship page and donate 15 bucks (per peezee) to the cause. then send me an email at crawford.jaye at gmail dot com. with your mailing address and  peezee in the subject line and i'll pop one in the mail (or drop it by your house if you live in guelph).

they come in a selection of colours and i should have the order to me this week and will let you know the selection of colours as soon as i have them.

awesome! oh and did i mention it is really fun to pee standing up. like really.

bike safe y'all and wear your helmet. (and pee standing up!)
jaye

more pee!

Hello again. so if you read along with my training last year, you will remember that peeing was a issue on my training rides. not like an issue in that i wet myself, but that i needed to stop and pee alot. and there are not many places in guelph and surrounding area where one can discretely water a tree, if you catch my drift.
and i found the same along the ride itself. i need to pee often. gas stations and other pee freindly places do not happen often. and if you're just catching on, i can't stand to pee. i remember on the ride biking by all these lucky folks who just tucked into a fence row along the road and way we go! all the while i'm wondering where the next mcdonalds is. not fun. so this year i have a plan. some genius folks have devised ways for those of us who find standing to pee challanging, to pee standing up with ease!they're called STPs or stand to pee. unfortunatly these same awesome folks have decided that the only accepetable colours for STPs are purple (lavender), pink (rose), bright blue, orange, basicly any colour that is not easy to keep a secret. and some of these things are huge. the folks at diva cup just came out with one
so i just ordered me one of these  puppies (no it's not actually a puppy), it's a sne-kee.  looks awesome. comes in some descrete colours, folds flat, is nice and small and hopfully easy to use

Sunday 1 April 2012

STP update and Upcoming events!

So I got home the other day to find a letter for me in the mail. It was my Sneekee, stand to pee device. I promptly opened it and used it. (Testing in the shower first as recommended). My god I can't say how awesome this device is. So freaken easy to use, and almost stupidly fun. Who knew standing to pee could be so much entertaining.  Now i've been peeing in the shower for years trying to master the peestanding up techniqes on my own but never having the confidence to try it with any clothes on. And with this, I can already use it without even undoing my belt. Awesome. No more cold toilet seats for me. We'll see how it goes when it's stops being so cold and I can get out for a good ride in my skin tight bike shorts. I think it'll be fine.  But ya i havn't sat down to pee at home since i got it. gunna try it at the farm tomorrow, with all my longjohns and all. Wish me luck! Now on my to do list. Put the toilet seat down. Awesome. AND because i love this product so much, and think you will too.  I'm in the works with the buisness owners to sell some as part of my fundraising goals. Keep watching for more details!

In other news! I'm going to be setting up shop (aka me on my bike trainer) at this months Bear Meat at Club Sizzle in Cambridge (135 George St. North), to collect donations. Event is April 14th, doors at 8, NO cover, lots of prizes, me in spandex, lots of fur. All bears and bear admireers and wannabes welcome.  See you there!

Also come visit me (again on my trainer in spandex) at the Annual Guelph Pride Dance, May 5th at the Oakwood Ballroom at Holiday Inn in Guelph. Doors at 9pm, Tickets 10$ in advance available at Out on the Shelf. I might also be setting up for a while on May 7th at the Out on the Shelf Open house. 4pm-9pm. 

Thank you to all these buisnesses and organiztions for letting me take up some of thier valuable floorspace to fundraise for such an awesome casue.