Even though I fritter away hours on a site devoted to New York cycling, I do not live in New York City, I live in New Jersey, which is a 30 minute drive and a removed set of sleeves across the Hudson River. Cycling in New Jersey differs in many ways from cycling in New York City. There’s far less traffic. There’s almost no cab drivers, and there’s also far fewer people to ride with. New York City has a dense population—which means there’s more representatives of any fringe social group, whether they be cyclists, haberdashers or accordion enthusiasts—to associate with. This makes it easy for these people to get together to ride bikes, exchange notions or squeeze revolting noises from a bellows-driven box of bumptious noises.

This is not the case in less densely populated areas like Ridgewood, NJ for example. But thanks to the internet (which it turns out, is good for things other than finding naughty pictures and e-comparing yourself to the people you graduated high school with), it’s possible for people to connect and share information about their hobbies and interests. And in the Village where I live (I’m not being "Olde Tyme" here, Ridgewood is actually a Village—it’s sooo much classier than being a Township. Suck it, Little Egg Harbor), a group of like minded cyclists has cropped up.

They are a group centered mostly around the notion of commuting into the city, at times so revoltingly early it is hard to believe. They post about getting together for the 25-ish mile ride into the city at 5:30am on a daily basis. Once again that’s—5:30—in the morning. That to me is astonishing, because I am disgusted by the idea of riding early in the morning—I hate early rides. I prefer to wake early, but I then sanely shuffle about and get coffee before I retreat to my computer (known as the "money-maker") to begin my day’s work. And due to my flexible schedule, I can then ride during the warmer daylight hours. The commuters don’t have this luxury though, so they’re up at 5:30 for the ride into the city.

I know of these activities because I’ve been added to their email list. Since I don’t join them on their rides, my contributions to the list consists of clogging their inboxes with non-sequiturs and "observations". (As an aside, I am available to join almost any email lists—no accordion listserves please, I have standards—out there for a nominal fee, and I promise to eventually annoy, anger or alienate almost everyone on those lists. God, I do love sending out sweet emails—™ JKIA.)

Although I e-monitor their movements from afar, I do occasionally have the opportunity to meet up with these sunrise stalwarts and rides on bicycles with them. Such was the case last Sunday. Many of the members of the group have raced bikes in the past or are currently racers, but a good percentage are just people who enjoy riding their bikes—can you imagine? So it was a mixed group that got together at 7am on Sunday morning, a nice group of folks who like riding bikes—and me.

I’m not sure what it is about me that brings about flashes of lunacy. I decided early on in the ride that I was going to take it easy. I was accompanying some neighbors who are just getting into the sport and wanted to join the ride, and an easy spin would both be beneficial to me from a training standpoint, and also beneficial from a social standpoint, as dropping neophytes to the sport on a ride is a jerk move. We rolled out of Ridgewood and all was well, everyone was keeping pace and our group was about 10 people. We headed to the hills outside of town and thing were cheery.

Then when we got to the climb. On rides, I usually keep an interior monologue going, as it helps to pass he time and, let’s face it, reality can be really boring sometimes. So in my imaginary world, I was playing the part of the helpful, experienced rider, who paces people back up to the pack and chats amicably as we roll down the road. But then we got to the climb of Skyline Drive, known as the Ventoux of Bergen County. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, but there are times when I cannot abide anyone being in front of me. On Sunday morning, the idea of someone reaching the top of the climb on Skyline before me was disagreeable, even repugnant. I took off, leaving behind my compatriots, neighbors and common decency. I heaved and clawed and dragged myself to the summit, arriving first surrounded in a red mist of misplaced aggression and needless competitiveness. The rest of the riders rolled to the top and we all assembled to catch our breath and ready ourselves for the rest of the ride. Some rolled out towards the descent while I waited for the rest to finish the climb, and once we were all together we rode down the hill together.

I returned to playing the part of helpful cycling companion. We moseyed past the fields and calm bodies of water just over the State line in New York. My momentary lapse of decency seemed to have gone by unnoticed, but it couldn’t be ignored a few miles later when I finally dropped my neighbor for good on the roads of Northern Jersey.

There’s an alarming regularity to my riding this week. I’ve been at the same weight every day and I’m feeling a bit in a rut. I’m just going to list my workouts in order below without any extraneous explanation.

 This is my weight, all week long.

Sunday, October 16

Monday, October 17

Tuesday, October 18

My enthusiasm and interest in training ebbs and flows throughout the winter season. I will have weeks where I decide to pay careful attention, and I have weeks where I can barely stomach the idea of squeezing myself into my bib shorts and showing the baboon colors of my backside to the outside world. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my many winters of bike training, it is this—you need to keep riding in order to remain fast. I’ll allow you a moment to let that sink in. Yes, in order to be good at bikes you need to ride bikes.

Wednesday, October 19

Yesterday I was feeling the effects of either a cold or allergies (only time will tell which malady wins out in the race to make me irritable and crotchety). When things gets serious respiratorily, whatever is irritating the ickiness nodes in my head turns to a clear fluid and escapes out my nostrils. Plainly put, I drip out of my face. Needless to say, it wasn’t a pleasant day.

Thursday, October 20