Last Thursday, I undertook the Who Needs Hardcore When You Have Hard Rock? bicycle tour. For extra rock, note that I wrote my captain's log out by hand with a fuschia Uni-ball Vision: business on the outside, bidness on the inside.

In a shortsighted effort to save $80, I left my pretty (most important: trusty! comfy! familiar!) Cinelli back in the Bay Area; with it, rack, gloves, water bottles, at the rest. Instead, I'm packing a messenger bag I bought at The Gap for $5 during high school, whose notable contents are:

• one (1) bottle soap bubbles, provenance Meenal's Sweet Sixteen party
• four (4) packs of 6 sparklers each, provenance one of Roger's long-haul drives across fireworks-legal states
• two spare pairs of socks
• no change of cycling clothing
• tube, patch kit, pump, wrenches
• cleats, a light shirt, shorts (for the ultimate tournament that was, ultimately (ha!), thunderstormed out)
• flip flops, a skirt, a tank top, and a shirt
• three pairs clean underwear

Our heroine's itinerary was more Hard Rock than Hardcore, as well. Borrowed a bike that almost but didn't exactly fit, and had a bunch of complicated transit connections, so it wasn't quite was peaceful as Seattle (why do I keep comparing every bike ride with that bike ride?) but did bring back good times. The bike had an odometer, but I was too focused on getting on the road that I forgot the replace the battery.

I rode 65 miles along secondary roads in eastern Long Island this past weekend en route to a ferry and then a bus to Boston (to visit Alex and Wan). Along the way, in the eastern half of the island, I biked past a bunch of sod farms: they sow lush Kentucky bluegrass (or whatever), cut it up in strips 2 feet long by 18 inches wide by a couple of inches thick, roll 'em up, and deliver to wherever in suburbia feels the dire need for insta-lawn. (It's how my personal, family, 3 Winnie Court lawn was created.) Amazing! Other major sights include hot dog stands everywhere in the middle of Long Island, farm stands everywhere in eastern Long Island, and the cutest and most good-natured just-past-toddler on the LIRR to whom I gave away my soap bubbles.

What was most exhilirating was the feeling of planting two wheels on the asphalt and wanting to go, go, go — so much so, in fact, that I utterly forgot to take a connecting train that would have enabled me to bike all the way to Brookline. Everything drops away, and you're utterly yet elastically focused on the mechanics of moving forward: putting on a sprint to make the yellow light, accelerating into a downhill to carry you over the hump of the next up. It's a chatty sort of relationship with the bike, a period of riding for the pure sake of riding.

As luck would have it, the next day turned out to be stormy, grey, and wet, so it's just as well that I wasn't committed to the bike. Ass-achusetts (some time in Andover with Alex and some in Brookline with Wan) was a good time. More later. For now, you can see my pretense-sepia-toned photos:

Launch Flickr album "Who needs hardcore when you have hard rock?"