going places for good reasons

Last year, when I was bugging friends about riding the Allegheny Passage, a couple friends reverse-bugged me about doing the Ride For the Feast, a two day, 140 mile charity ride in May that raises money for Moveable Feast. Moveable Feast gives food to people living with HIV/AIDS or breast cancer. I am in favor of food. I have friends stuck with all those bad things. Sign me up.

So now the idea of riding from Rehoboth Beach to Baltimore is starting to sink in, plus the idea of parking my tender ass on a saddle for 24-odd hours. Sounds like fun! But first I need to do some stuff, like finding some bike shoes that don't mush my ducklike feet (which hasn't been a problem for trail riding so much since I'm rarely on the bike non-stop due to hills, trees, rocks, gravity, etc.), finding some new bike shorts (since I've killed most of my roadie spandex by stuffing it under motorcycle leathers and frying it across South Dakota), and either sorting out the chain path on the seven-speed so it doesn't barf at random intervals or finally putting the Cannondale road bike back together (and pre-dosing on painkillers because the super-rigid aluminum frame will beat me to death over 140 miles; maybe I'll just stick with the steel frames). (This makes it sound like I just might have too many bicycles. I assure you, that's not the case, and you shouldn't listen to anything Brian says about it.)

Oh right, and I'm supposed to raise some money. I'm riding with Team Atomic (sponsored by Atomic Books), and here's where you can go to give me some moneys. Er, give the Ride some money. You get it. I'm totally open to pimping myself out for this, so lemme know what I can trade sponsorship dollars for–some humiliation options are already laid out. It's unfortunately not set up in the old Bowlathon style, i.e., some money per pin, or mile, so you'll just have to take my word that I'll finish. (My car will be in Baltimore. I'll finish.)