I’m sorry for being MIA since then.  I had a lot of sleeping, eating, and massaging of my thumbs to do (note:  when you are a cycle dum-dum and ride twenty miles and lean on your thumbs for that entire time, they will STING the next morning.)

My Ride for Roswell was AMAZING. Let’s start at the beginning.  Oh, and get yourself an iced tea or lemonade–it’s a long one, peeps…

6:15 AM:  Get up.  Pinch myself because Ride for Roswell day is finally here.  Hope today won’t be the day I fall off my bike.  Make enough coffee to keep myself and the five teammates who are sleeping upstairs pleasant.

6: 30 AM:  Pad downstairs to see Little A in fully caffeinated, excited singing action, having composed a song along the lines of “Ride for Roswell!  Padded booty!”:

Laugh when she dances so maniacally she slams her elbow into counter.  Stop laughing when she looks at me with daggers in  her eyes.  Make banana oatmeal and store it for car ride, fill water bottles, put bag of sunblock/knee sleeve/sunglasses by the door.

7:00 AM:  Go outside to help load eight bicycles into three cars.  Realize that this is probably the hardest part of the day.  Gab about how it’s going to happen while Baby Bel calmly eats her peanut butter sandwich:

7:40:  We all finally pile into cars.  Realize I left my bag of knee sleeve/sunglasses/sunblock in the house as I’m eating oatmeal.  Almost spit it out in rage, then just swear and steal husband’s sunglasses.  Follow Miss Linz’s car down the highway as she takes a really odd route to the University at Buffalo, where the race starts:

8:02:  Realize that–oops!–we followed a random car that looked liked Linz’s car because it was also carrying bikes.  Wonder why we were so ridiculous to not realize we were following the wrong car.  Get caught in traffic as peloton riders and 62.5-mile riders go by.  Start to get really nervous.  Field frantic calls from team members whose bikes are stuck in traffic on our car.

8:19:  Make it to UB.  Park.  Hoist bikes down, get oil on new cycling shirt, catch up to rest of group, head to registration.

8:40:  Pick up registration.  Frantically pin numbers, take other people’s helmets and water bottles, lose each other coming and going from the bathroom.  Hand all swag and cameras to Number One Cheerleader (Mr. Laura) and thank the heavens that someone is keeping a cool head in all the chaos:

8:45:  Get in line with all the riders heading to the start line:

8:55:  Pick up “in memory of” and “in honor of” stickers and tags.  Dedicate memory tags to my dad, a friend’s dad, and a friend’s grandfather.  Dedicate honor tags to my uncle, my grandmother, and one very, very special Linz.  Get really choked up.  Use The Tall One’s t-shirt as a snot rag.  Get over it and move along to the start line.

9:00:  Away we go! 

9:05:  Ride very slowly (as in, start and stop) as we exit the University.  Ride while reading the names of some of the people to whom people have dedicated their rides.  Feel completely overwhelmed at the number of people riding, the cause, etc;  almost fall off my bike.  Get hold of myself and focus on enjoying this crazy ride with my crazy people.

9:10-10:00:  What a ride!  We go through beautiful country roads, county parks, and over bridges and pathways.  I hand off my borrowed sunglasses and manage not to fall while doing so.  We reach the Niagara River and ride along, taking in the ducks and the geese and the boats and the scenery.  We cross our collective fingers that the clouds don’t turn into rain.  See a few riders fall when they mistake this for a race and get aggressive about passing people.

10:20-ish:  Rest stop!  Drink water.  Wonder where the snacks are.  Oops–this is the toilet stop, not the actual rest stop.  Get back on bikes and cycle a bit more.

10:23:  Rest stop for real!  Grab peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (forgot how many–they were pretty good), stuff face with oranges.  Realize having orange pulp stuck to my teeth for the next eight miles might not be pleasant.  Have another one anyway.  Comment that my hamstring is tight and have Allilicious misinterpret me (she thought I said my hamster was tight–this turns into an ongoing joke about how my hamster is doing).

10:27:  Feeling refreshed, we keep riding.  People come out of their houses to cheer for us, including a man with a vuvuzela–genius.  Ride close to team.  Wonder whether padded shorts might have been a good idea–nah.

10:55:  Ride starts to wind down.  We reach a few red lights.  Dismount from bike.  Get back on when light turns green.  Realize that padded shorts would indeed have been a brilliant idea.  Vow not to remove my booty from my seat until it’s over–staying on the seat isn’t as bad as getting on it again.

11:10:  Speed up to reach the campus, then slow down as us four sisters decide we’re going to ride through together.  Again with the choking up.  Stop it when I realize I can’t ride and wipe my nose at the same time (plus I don’t have sleeves and they’re not about to volunteer their own sleeves for my benefit.)

11:12:  Slow down, dismount bike in the crowd mass of people arriving, and walk bike slowly over the same names that we rode by earlier.  Smile for cameras, cheerleaders, volunteers, spectators, etc.  Wonder how 20 miles went so quickly.

11:14:  The sisters and I spot Mr. Laura and we ham it up for our personal paparazzo:

11:20:  Park bikes.  Ham it up some more!  Nothing makes a girl feel as ready for her close-up with Mr. DeMille as removing the sweaty helmet she’s being wearing for the last two and a half hours:

Sisters, all smiling at once--we were well-trained that way...

Team Papa's Pedalers--woot woot!

New ride tradition: pick up the tiniest member of your team for good luck the next time around

Have your awesome team leader pick her up too, for extra good luck

11:50-12:40:  Eat, duck from heavy rain, take in the scene, take a gazillion more pictures:

My cheeks are so big I'm hiding half a huge chocolate chip cookie in there

12:45:  Try to find Linz and Little A, who received massages and VIP treatment for raising well above and beyond their goal.  Arrange to meet them back at the cars.   Struggle as six of us drag eight bikes away.  Drop a few bikes.  Hope the owners don’t find out… oh, oops.

1:00:  Reach car.  Begin rigmarole of stuffing eight bikes into two cars (one of them had to leave early, sans bikes.)

1:15:  Continue struggle of stuffing eight blasted bikes into two cars.  Take seat and front wheel off two bikes to shove bikes into car.  Lose spring from front wheel of one of them (no idea what it’s called):

Try to call Linz and Little A to meet us at the re-parked cars, but they left their phones attached to their bikes (um, what?? and they weren’t stolen??? UB is much nicer than I remember it being…)

1:45:  Finish loading bikes thanks to Baby Bel, mostly.  No Linz or Little A in sight.  Argh.

2:01:  Finally find Linz and Little A after they borrow a good Samaritan’s phone to find out where we were; all good vibes from their massages and VIP treatments have worn off after they’ve spent the last half hour looking for us and glaring at us when they finally see us.  Pile into two cars, somehow (let’s not even explain how, lest moving vehicle violations get issued retroactively.)

2:04:  Fall asleep in car until we get home.

As for the rest of the day, it was spent rehashing what a great time we had, how sleepy we were, and how hungry we were (ok, it was mostly me that was starving.)   Mr. Laura and I also drove back to UB to find the damn spring from Little A’s bike and spent 20 fruitless minutes looking for it before we gave up and ran to the bike shop for a replacement (which was free.)  When we returned, I was ordered to nap because I was no longer making any kind of sense–I was giving bad driving directions, leaving my purse in the car,  dropping everything, and being an overall liability to all and sundry.

Once I woke up, I had to be restrained from shoving even more bread and butter into my gullet.  Instead of making the multigrain bread pull a magical disappearing act, we celebrated the ride (and Little A’s new job!) in a discreet and sweet way, partaking of wondrous sake and Chinese food at Tokyo Shanghai:

Wonton soup

Beef with eggplant, pork fried rice--in quantities to make me stop being hungry once and for all!

Little A's gorgeous hibachi chicken

After which we headed home for tea, company, and–eventually–a bite of midnight sushi (unpictured except for the supermarket display–by the time I ate the sushi at 1:30 am, I was too tired to function beyond chewing and breathing):

Needless to say, there is absolutely no way I’m missing out next year’s Ride for Roswell.  In total, our team raised over $2,200 for cancer research!  We had a great time, bonded like crazy over our training rides, and had many a fruitful discussion about the merits and drawbacks of padded shorts/gloves/frog-shaped bike bells.  I can’t wait until next year, where our sisterly bionic booties will tackle 33 miles (I’m pushing for 44, but they’re still having none of it… we’ll see!)

I’d like to thank all those who donated and all those who wished me and the team well for our ride–we couldn’t have done this without you!  I’ll also be holding the skirt giveaway later this week, when I can recruit some sister labor to help me cut out slips of paper–we go old-school ’round these parts, y’all!