Tandem TSFB

It's that time again!  TSFB is training for Bike Around the Bay this October.

This year, the route is 180 miles in 2 days, so we are training like crazy.  But don't worry.  This isn't that type of bike ride where we ask you for money.  This is the type of bike ride where you just get to sit back and wonder what possesses us to do a thing like this.  I often wonder myself.  

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Old Doc Westbrook is Greater Than 30

You know how I am less than 30? Well, Eddy is definitely not. This year for his birthday, I planned a variety of things he loves to do. They will take the form of a before and after blog post here.

First, I surprised Eddy by making him a Japanese breakfast. He loves surprises. Before:

After:

Next, we went on a bike ride.

Along the way we stopped at a church bazaar.

It was an adventure. Eddy loves adventures. There are some after shots of the bike ride, but they mostly entail sweaty Eddy, so I will spare you. After the bike ride, I took Eddy on a super secret surprise adventure to drink bloody Mary beverages at Leon's Lounge. Before:

After:

Did I mention that Eddy loves bloody Marys?  Then we hung out with our neighbors and played Wii. Later I took Eddy out to a nice dinner at Benjy's. Before:

After:

Hope Old Doc Westbrook had the best birthday ever!

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Bike (Half Way) Around the Bay

Just after Japan, we rode in another 150 mile bike ride--Bike Around the Bay.  Well, sort of.  You see, the first day was glorious.  We got there early and lined up with our bike.

Then Dave and Dana joined us! Here's a picture of their butts.

Dave is the shark butt.  Dana is #147.  The route was breathtaking. It took us right by the ocean. Well, it was the Gulf. But it had waves like the ocean and it smelled all ocean-y and there were palm trees. But it was brown like the Gulf. Harumph! When we got close to Galveston, we got to take a ferry ride over to the island.

There were tons of dolphins out that day jumping and following along with the boat. It was amazing! When we got to the hotel, there was a swim up bar.

That night we dined with DP^2.

Ah, day 1. The next day was a different story. I woke up super sick, tropical storms rolled in and long story short, we didn't ride the entire route home. Instead, we rode across the causeway in the morning--they close down two lanes to let all of the bikers across. Then we wussed out. We weathered part of the thunder storms at the lunch site where we helped out the volunteers a bit.

Then we went home, camped out on our couch and watched the first real Houston rain in about a million months roll in. Were we proud of ourselves? No, not particularly. Were we cozy and dry. Well, yeah, actually we were.

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Bike Around the Bay

I wasn't able to embed the video here, so all I can do is link, but check out this sweet video about our upcoming bike ride. You should have seen the panic on my face when the guys talks about riding hills in Houston.  What have we gotten ourselves into?!

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Golden

Thanks to Dana, Queen of the Yuppies, we are training for the Bike Around the Bay. It's another 150 mile ride, but this time around the Galveston bay. Eddy has been pestering me to do some cross-training, so we finally bought this beauty.

That's right. It's a circa 1970s Montgomery Ward Hawthorne. Oh, and by the way... it's gold. It also has this.

We're not too many weeks away from the ride now, so this gem will come in handy.

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2 of 13,000

Team Sunshine Fuzzy Bunny rode the BP MS 150 this weekend from Houston to Austin! We were 2 of 13,000 riders--the largest MS 150 ride in the country. BUT, we were 1 of maybe 5 tandem bikes on the ride, so take that, MS 150!

Our friends Dave and Dana also rode.

And we got to make an awesome pit stop at my friends Damon and Linda's "Ranchito." Here I am with Damon and Jac: their standard poodle and my new bff.

Check out how tired we looked after day 1:

And this is Eddy trying hard not to sleep on the bus home after day 2:

Such a fun trip! We may even consent to ride a bike again... someday... Like, a really long time from now...

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Dr. Scott

Remember the fleet?

The fleet is no more. Now we have Dr. Scott (no relation to Brad or Janet)! Dr. Scott is a green Subaru Outback. Our humongo tandem bike fits comfortably in Dr. Scott:

Captain Duvet loves Dr. Scott:

And he served us well on our trip to Austin this week.

It's the end of an era.

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Taking a Weekend Off

I'm traveling this weekend, so we will miss our MS150 training ride for the week! Here are some observations from last week's ride.

On our well-worn route, we like to stop at Froberg's Farm--it's every bit as awesome as the website makes it seem. There is a sausage store there that we always eye (and smell). Normally we discuss how we might use those little pockets on the back of our bike jerseys to bring sausages home from our ride.

This time we actually bought one. It was tasty. And enormous.

And we saw these awesome giraffes. In someone's yard.

Also, last week during our night with P.W. we saw an art bike exhibit hosted by none other than the MS 150. Feast your eyes on these beauties.

Happy weekend, all!

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Tandem Tune Up

When we're not training or asking begging you for money, we're readying our MS150mobile for the upcoming ride. Our favorite bike store is Daniel Boone Cycles. The Cobbs gave us a gift certificate there for Xmas and we're hooked. There are no jerkety bike snobs on the staff and the place has character. This is helpful when you have to kill time while the friendly staff works on your tandem.

One can entertain oneself by appreciating their bike-related sculpture:

Also available in tandem flavor:

One can ponder their helpful signage:

or try desperately to pet the adorable litter of kittens they have right now:

The bike is almost ready to go and we can't wait for the ride in April!

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Strawberries!

The half-way point on another successful training ride with DP^2!



Here's the fine print:



Now we're off on another DP^2 adventure!

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Juxtaposition

Here are some more delights from our new training route for the MS 150.

A Buddhist shrine:

And a bait store:

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A New Route

We have a new training route for the MS 150. It's out past Pearland and weaves through some pretty sweet rural Texas sights. There's something interesting every few miles, so here's our first installment.

This is our favorite road sign on the route. Thankfully Nicci + Eddy + tandem weighs considerably less than 17,500 lbs.

A cardboard cutout town complete with horses and buggies:

And next to it, this sign:

Tune in later for more sights from the route.

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TSFB Procrastinates Naughtily

So, we're riding in the MS 150 this April. It's a 150 mile bike race from Houston to Austin. We got a new tandem bike and we've been training, but the one thing we neglected to do was start fundraising! We've got to raise $400 each, and we need your help.

So if you like us:



And you don't like Multiple Sclerosis:



Then please visit our sites and donate!

Eddy
Nicci

Thanks for your support!

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Happy Weekend!

After all that wedding planning, we started to forget what it was like to have a real weekend together with no stress. So, finally, after Thanksgiving and an out-of-town meeting, we finally got a chance to remember what is was like to have a fun weekend together.

We started off Saturday with a fun visit to the Houston Dairymaids, a funny little warehouse in the Heights that distributes local cheeses from all over Texas. (But we forgot to take pictures, doh!) Next, we visited a fun grocery store / farmer's market just up the street:

They had the most gorgeous produce, and they even had fresh beans:

Today, we took a 15 mile bike ride to train for the MS 150, a 150-mile bicycle race from Houston to Austin. Here we are at the halfway point:

Then, finally, we got a chance to do some Christmas decorating. Look at me precariously perched while pushing push-pins:

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