Tour De Thursday and The Belgian Hammer

Yes folks, it’s hot out. Stop complaining about it, because I can hear Arizona and Nevada laughing at us all the way over here. I honestly don’t want to hear much complaining when your exposure to the outdoors consists of walking from your air conditioned car to your air conditioned place of employment.

Last night was Thursday night, which means that, despite the heat, it was Tour De Thursday time with Carmel Pedals. I’ve skipped for the last month due to a varied list of excuses and issues, and I was determined to hit this week. 104 degrees? Meh. I’ll drink plenty of water and be fine, right? Plus, it was going to be a short ride on the Monon, so it’ll be a cake walk.

Showing up, I was obsessively checking The Twitter to see if it had been cancelled due to the excessive warmth, but that was never the case. All in all, 16 people showed up for a short ride down the trail. A couple of us only went as far as the Monon Center, and the rest of the group went down to 96^th before turning around, picking us up at the Monon Center, and heading back to the SoHo Café.

Once back at the Café, I loaded the bike back into the Cardis and went inside for a nifty presentation by Daniel Lee, author of “The Belgian Hammer” which is about young cyclists and their quests to become professionals. Joining him for the presentation were cyclists Adam Leibovitz and Guy East, who helped provide some anecdotes through his presentation, which lasted about 40 minutes.



Daniel Lee talking to us about "The Belgian Hammer"
and his experiences as a cyclist.



This was an interesting presentation, talking about his history as a rider, and his experiences with other riders training on the professional circuit. You folks know me by now, I’m by no means a physical person, and I’m not much of a cyclist. Heck, I hesitate to use that word in reference to myself. I’m shaky, I’m slow, and hills are my mortal enemy. However, I found this pretty cool and interesting, talking about what it’s like to go tearing down the side of a mountain at over 60 miles an hour on a bicycle, or how much more physical races are in other countries.

It was a good evening filled with good people and a good presentation. Thanks to SoHo Café and Carmel Cyclery for hosting, for the light snacks during the presentation (loved the guac and salsa!) and for the Carmel Pedals T-Shirts, which I’ll post a picture of after I wash the sweat out of it.

See you all Monday.
Tony