On Bike Rides and Ineffecient Time Investment

For a few weeks, I've desperately been wanting to ride Goshen Canyon. There's no logical explanation for my devotion to this canyon - it's certainly not anywhere near the most spectacular in Utah, it's a short 10 mile ride so it's barely enough to get your pulse moving, it's 45 minutes away. But I think it's awfully pretty and the canyon holds a bunch of happy memories for me, including being on the route of the very first century ride I completed.

Anyway, with all of the organized rides cancelled this year, I've had "Ride Goshen Canyon" on my family activity wishlist all summer. 

Last Sunday we had the perfect weather, Ben had a unicycling friend over who wanted to take a ride, and we decided to (i.e. I talked my family into) take a ride in Goshen Canyon. 

And then reality sunk in. Steve needed to change his bike tube. I needed to get the tandem bike shipshape. We needed to figure out how to get 6 people, an ebike, a tandem, a youth road bike, and two 36-inch unicycles into vehicles. The best vehicle to take would be Rainy, but she was rather stubbornly refusing to start. We had to figure out our one-way route plan (who was dropping off a vehicle? How would they return to the rest of us? A fox, a chicken, and a bag of corn want to cross a river...). It was now closing in on 4 pm and we still had a 45-mintue drive ahead of us. All for a 10-mile bike ride. Really?

I was ready to throw in the towel. The effort just didn't seem worth it. Hours of prep for maybe 50 minutes of riding? The return on investment just wasn't there.

I've definitely been experiencing a scarcity mindset when it comes to time. There are so many reasons - my Western, perfectionist culture, a season of life when time comes at a premium (4 kids, working full-time, finishing a big construction project this summer), and my own "take every moment captive" mentality... it's particularly easy for me to prioritize activities that provide obvious output or are the fastest way to tick an item off my list.=

It's not all bad, this prizing of effeciency. But it's not all good, either. It's easy for me to miss out on the joy of creating and the sheer pleasure of doing something for the doing's sake rather than primarily for the fulfillment of its output.

And so I especially treasured the feeling of the setting autumn sun on my face, the happy chatting with my girls as we coasted downhill, the fun of my husband buzzing ahead on his ebike to snag photos of us (and, also, to show off how fast he could go), the ravenous consumption of a 7:30 pm dinner at Wendy's.  I appreciated the reminder that sometimes the ratio of enjoyment-to-preparation isn't linear. It was an awfully good time, inefficient time investment and all.

It can be awfully challenging to get a selfie of 3 gals while riding, especially when 2 are on a tandem!

I love that you can see the tandem's shadow in this pic

Our hearty unicycle riders took the canyon both ways to add some extra miles to the outing!

Goshen Canyon may not be the most spectacular in Utah, but it's still pretty great

The home stretch! Our unicyclers definitely earned their Frostys.

Constructing Memories

We try to do all things with our own special style and flair. And since this construction project is, Lord willing, the biggest construction project we'll ever do, we knew we had to add our signature to it! I mean, to be fair there are lots of our own special touches (like a bike room!) but when we knew that we were going to have a whole palate of three truck's worth of concrete to play with, we started brainstorming how to make it ours.

We ended up deciding on two pieces of flair.

The first represents all of places that are special to our family:

• Maryland (where Steve, Sam, and I were born)
• Utah (our home for the last 20 years)
• China (WanYing's birthplace)
• Kazakhstan (Sasha's birthplace)
• Mexico (home of Hogar de Amor and our spiritual second home)

The coins will sit right inside the door and they look awesome.

The second decoration (so far) is a pair of unicycle tracks in the bike room.

We thought it was too risky to have somebody ride a unicycle across wet cement, so our first plan was to rig a unicycle to a board and reach as far as we could to make a squiggle in the cement.

It worked remarkably well, especially when the concrete amigos (who were so good-natured about the whole thing!) lent us some pads for Steve to walk on to extend the markings even further.

At the urging of the concrete amigos, we then roused Ben from bed at the crack of 11:30 to ride through the concrete to make another line. We had originally thought this wouldn't be a good idea because:
a) riding a unicycle through wet concrete
b) we didn't really want tracks in the mud room, only in the bike room

But, apparently b was an unfounded concern because when we do the epoxy floor in the mud room the track won't be visible and a was an unfounded concern because Ben.

So, ride he did!

And both tracks look simply marvelous. I love these little touches that make the whole project uniquely ours.

When Commuting Goes Wrong: Concussion Confessions

If you know me at all, you know a few key facts: Raw tomatoes are gross, I almost always wear Birkenstocks, and I love to ride my bike. Yes, there are more datapoints available about my life, but I think those three cover the essentials.

I cycle commute year-round and I love it. My current commute is a quick 2.5 miles and rain, snow, or shine you’ll usually find me on the saddle with a smile. Cycling to work has many advantages: no parking hassles, cheap(er) transportation, fresh air, low carbon footprint, a little extra exercise, looking like a badass (especially on bad-weather days). My favorite benefit is having quieting centering me-time at the start and end of each workday - cycling truly is therapeutic for my body and soul.

My husband gave me a bike for my birthday seven years ago, and shortly thereafter I started to cycle commute whenever I could. It was love at first ride.

Over the years I’ve ridden to and from work over 800 times. That means I’ve cycle commuted about every other day since I started. Not bad, considering vacations, sick days, travel, and the occasional day when I have to drive in (sigh) because of off-site meetings or appointments. I’ve racked up a total of over 8,500 miles in commute distances alone. At this rate, it will take me another thirteen years to cycle commute the equivalent of the circumference of the earth. I’m up for the challenge.

So, yeah, cycle commuting (and riding in general) is a big deal to me and something I’m super grateful for. And after those hundreds of rides and thousands of miles, I had never experienced a serious issue while riding. Sure, I blew out a few tubes and got a couple of scrapes, but nothing big. Until the end of March.

I was riding home at my normal time, on my normal route, on my normal bike, and I got unlucky and biffed a few blocks from work. I have only spotty memories from the incident...

I remember somebody asking if I was ok, so I guess a driver saw me go down and stopped to check on me. I’m sure I said I was fine (clearly I was not).

I remember being on the bike path I take home every day and feeling a little scared because I didn’t know where I was… but I knew I knew where I was. And I remember not knowing how to get home… but knowing that I knew how to get home.

Good thing my body knew the route even if my brain was at far less than peak performance, because the next thing I remember is stopping in my driveway, putting the kickstand down on my bike, walking into the house, and telling Steve that I had fallen on my bike and needed to go to Instacare.

Wise man that he is, he took me immediately to the Emergency Room. By then I was almost ok - I think I knew the answer to every question except for the year. That was frustrating. I knew I knew what year it was, it just took me 20 minutes to figure out the answer :)

CT scans and X-rays and a few checkups later, everything was ok, I just was very banged up and bruised - body and brain both.

Recovery has been slow and laborious. I love my brain, and the awareness that my brain is not performing at full capacity has been deeply challenging for me. My mental processing is still a little slow, especially at the end of the day or when I’m tired. I still get queasy if I spend too much time looking at a computer screen (I work in software, so that’s a bit of a challenge). I’ve given up TV and movies almost entirely because they just don’t feel good.

But you know what still feels great? Riding my bike.

People have asked if I wanted to give up riding after my accident, and my answer is a resounding no. I got unlucky. Accidents happen in lots of different ways and staying home on the couch (or deciding to drive instead of ride) in order to avoid an accident seems like an unhealthy response. Besides, plenty of people get hurt in car accidents, too!

I did get a new helmet. And I watch corners with curbs more closely now. I’m still taking things slow; there’s a lot of healing still to do. I get frustrated on the slow days and the headache days.

And when I get frustrated, my very best therapy - body and mind - is still a to hop on my bike and take a spin.

WanYing's First Century Ride

by WanYing

Bike MS we do every year and a lot of our friends come, too. And I was riding on a tandem with my mom. And I was doing a hundred miles.

We've been training for it for the year. And my favorite part is when we down a huge hill and we went 44 miles an hour down that hill. It felt good because of the wind.

There were rest stops every 15 or 20 miles and there was a lot of different types of food. Like energy snacks and different types of treats like Rice Krispy Treats and Twizzlers.

The hardest part was a long shallow hill near the beginning and it went on forever.

It felt good to finish it, but your butt hurts a lot after.

Ever a glutton for punishment (and loving time with her girls!) Mom heads out Sunday for another 30 miles. WanYing said her legs were dead, so Sasha happily subbed in!

Little Red Riding Hood

by WanYing

Last week we did 70 miles on a tandem and I was dressed up as Little Red and then Mom was dressed up as the woodsman and my gramma as the grandma and a friend of my gramma came as the wolf.

The best part was there was a giant hill and you can go really fast on it. We went 40-something miles per hour on the hill.

The hardest part was there was a super long hill. It wasn't too steep, but it was long.

There was Oreos with peanut butter and bananas on it and that was one of my favorite snacks there.

At the finish line we got bracelets that said "Little Red 2018" with little charms on it and you got a cool drink.

And after I was really tired.

That was me before the ride

That's my Little Red costume before we started.

That's me and my mom and my brother on the tricycle. He volunteered.

That's us during the ride.

That's us when we finished!

And those are the cool drinks.

Tour de Donut

There are defining moments in life. Moments that push you to the limit. Choosing to win, at the risk of tossing your cookies. Pressuring your teenagers to acquiesce to wearing coordinating jerseys. Choosing that tenth donut. The difference between being crowned Donut Queen and going home merely exhausted and nauseated.

Today, we met that challenge as a family, and we emerged victorious: Second place girl, second place unicycle (a division created for our family!), first place woman over 65 (good job Mom!), first place woman 36-45, and Donut Queen and Donut Princess. 26 donuts consumed and 63 miles raced between the four Morningstar riders. A proud day.

Here's WanYing's description of her day:

---

The Tour de Donut is a ride where there's three laps. Each of them are seven miles. And once you go once around you get to eat donuts and each donut you eat you get three minutes off.

And there's different age groups. One of them is ten years old and then there's another age group which is like to twentyish. And I rode in the younger than ten one.

I ate four donuts, but I only had to go two laps because I was in the younger than ten group. And I was Princess of Eating Donuts for my age group. And I got second place in my age group for overall time.

It was hard because I to ride my own bike for fourteen miles. I felt good after the ride. And I would do it again.

---

I'll level with you - ten donuts pushed me to the brink.  But the fame, the glory, the commemorative plaque, and sharing the Donut Queen/Donut Princess plinth with my girl, well, that's a memory that no mere queasiness could ever sully.

Sam proudly finishes

One more pic of all our bling

I won the battle of the coordinating jerseys. I lost on the bottom half - Ben and Sam wore jeans and Birkenstocks. Choose your battles.

WanYing's First Time on Little Red

by WanYing

Little Red is really fun. You have to train hard to do it. It's really fun and guaranteed that you're going to have a great time if you do it.

Little Red is a bike ride that you can do in Cache Valley. Only girls are allowed to do the bike ride. The guys can volunteer, though, to help around.

And there's many stands that you can go around to buy things, mostly bike things, though. You can get glitter tattoos - there's bikes and butterflies, but I don't know if there's any other things. I chose a bike, that's what I usually get every year. My mom and me got matching tattoos and they were blue and the tires were dark blue. Our gramma got one, too.

There's breakfast and there's lunch and there's dinner and there's tickets for the food but if you volunteer or you're a biker then you get free food. I really liked dinner.

You camp outside. There's a bunch of grass out there that you can camp on. You can bring trailers, you can bring a Vanagon, you can bring tents.

The hundred milers go first, then the seventies, and then the fifties, then there's thirty fives and then there's twenty fives and fifteen miles. I went on the fifty.

Volunteers have to wake up at 6, though.

Sam volunteered at the start line

Our family went in the car and played songs off their phones with big speakers and cheered for everybody and they played Eye of the Tiger and that was my favorite song

It felt really good to do Little Red. There were rest stops each 10 milesish. At the rest stops there were Oreos with peanut butter and bananas on it!

There were some people who were wearing costumes and some people even rided with their costumes on.

There was a huuuuuge downhill. We went 42.5 miles per hour down it. It was really fun. It was the biggest downhill I've ever done.

There were a bunch of farms. There were a bunch of horses and cows. There were even baby horses.

It was a bit chilly at some parts of the ride because we were going either really fast down a hill so there was a lot of wind or we were going so fast ourselves that there was wind. It felt hot in the afternoon.

It took us three hours to do the whole thing. I felt really good at the end because it was the longest bike ride I've ever done.

Sasha Rides a Century

by Sasha

last weekend i rode the Goldilocks bike ride on Saturday September 24 7:00 am to 5:00 pm. Goldilocks has the option of  riding  20 miles 40 miles 60 miles 80 miles or a 100 miles. Me and my mom did 100 miles on the tandem. it was fun but hard.

before we were able to ride Goldilocks we had to train for it the trail we trained on is called the Murdock we were able to do 60 miles before Goldilocks came.

before we started riding Goldilocks at starting line i felt scared that we wouldn't going to be able to do 100miles.

the weather at Goldilocks was really rainy and cold we had to where two layers of coats. i rode with my grandma and the hardest part of the ride was this canyon that was pretty but it had some big hills. my favorite view was when we were riding by a field of flowers the funniest part of the bike ride was when a herd of cows were in the road and we had to get off are bike then get back on. when we finineshed the ride there were people cheering for us for example my dad [who is crazy] my sister and some strangers.

This picture is before we started the ride we wanted to take a before picture and a after picture.

This picture is when we started and a photographer when we were almost to the second stop

This picture was when we just climbed a big hill and riding along the lake with a pretty view

this picture was when the photographer took a picture of us while we were riding along the lake and looking for seagulls

this picture was when we fineshed the ride and we were so happy we were able to do 100 miles

Tour de Donut Tour de Force

It's a beautiful, once-in-a-lifetime feeling when you find that perfect athletic event, that perfect challenge that pushes you to your limits and back again. The event that showcases the unique balance of skills and God-given talent that makes you you; almost like it was designed just for you. The event you dominate, almost without even trying.

For us, the Utah Tour de Donut is just such an event.

Last year, you'll recall, Steve and I killed it in the tandem division. Seeing as tandem was no longer a challenge, this year we decided to pull together a 5-man team with our good friends from Team C4C.

Spoiler alert: we dominated.

Ben entered in a bit of an underdog category: The Unicycle Division.

(no, there was not actually a unicycle division, although we're officially petitioning for one next year)

He completed one 7.5 mile loop, which is pretty freaking amazing. 

He wasn't fast. But what he lacked in speed, he made up for in style out the wazoo. Aero helmet. Full cycling kit. Birkenstocks. The boy rocked it.

What, you ask, is the Utah Tour de Donut? Glad you asked.

The race is an event that combines cycling prowess with grotesque amounts of donut consumption. The race itself is a timed event with three 7-mile loops. After loops one and two, the athletes stop to eat donuts. Three minutes is deducted from your total time for each donut consumed. It's beautifully simple; nauseatingly difficult.

Oh, and it all benefits the Rotary Club and a local food bank, which is pretty cool. But not as cool as the glow of glorious victory!!!
 

How did we fare? Well, Steve ate an inspirational 17 donuts, and I held my own with 8. The Donut Queen (most donuts consumed by a woman) ate 9, so Steve was pretty disappointed that I didn't manage to down one or two more and earn that title. I'm just glad I didn't toss my cookies donuts.

Team C4C had an extraordinary showing with 8 medals overall. We were the first-place team, and I won second place for my age group and second place woman overall! My mom won for her age group as well.

And there were no "reversals" and all smiles at the finish - so I think it's safe to say that a very good time was had by all!