Surfcycle Plague 2: Rain

We all know that rain is part of summer. It can ruin your fireworks, or your cookout, or your baseball game, or your motorcycle ride. There's not much you can do besides head back inside and watch black and white Spanish TV like the McCallisters in Florida.

However, on the first night of the Surfcycle Sojourn, I had somewhere to BE. I had to go to a someplace where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capastrano. I'm talking about a little place called Staten Island (wait, did that clip say Cincinnati?). I could not be deterred.

I've spent my fair share of time in the rain. Canoeing the Amazon River, patrolling during the swamp phase of Ranger School, and even walking to my car earlier today. So I wasn't about to let a few lil droplets stop me.

The downpour was a combination of sting-ing rain and big ole FAT rain because I was hitting big ole FAT rain at 65mph. The roads were drenched. I had to defog the visor every few minutes and couldn't see a darn thing.

Smack dab in the center of the westbound Long Island Expressway three red lights hovered at eye level 100 yards in front of me. I started to coast. I saw a blob of a man in front of the lights acting as road guard at 50 yards. I recognized the cab of a semi the size of an untransformed Optimus Prime making a U-turn and slammed on both brakes.

The tires skidded as I fishtailed 30 degrees toward the back of the truck and cruised onto the shoulder. The truck finished its turn and I sat on the side of the road for a minute.

We're going to get serious for a minute. Have you ever thought of the worst case scenario and can't even imagine it? I came within a few feet of getting my entire upper body hacked off by an empty flatbed and thought, "At least it wouldn't hurt." I took a few more moments to let my heart rate slow down and carried on in a Churchill fashion.

Source

Keep riding,
LSF

PS: I think the internet overdid the "Keep Calm..." thing. Check out these search results. The only one REEALLY worth making was "Keep Calm and Call Batman". Words to live by.

The Spartan Race is in One Week... I'll Probably Win

So the Spartan Race is coming up to Amesbury, MA this weekend. Ima gettin ready.

I watched a demo on the obstacles that runners face during the Spartan. Boucoups cardio and gymnastics.

Cardio, of course, is any kind of workout that elevates the heartrate for an extended period of time. Gymnastics tests agility, balance, and explosive strength. Think of any kind of exercise where you use your own body weight rather than weights, like pull ups, push ups or box jumps.

I started doing the Workouts of the Day (WOD) for the Spartan Race at my crappy at-work gym (I was a gym orphan at the time) and ditched it after a week. I decided to try real WODs at a local CrossFit gym. I've been doing it for two weeks and come out sore for days every time. The good sore.

I've had some success with WODs that involve low weight, high rep, so I'm hoping that I may be able to finish in the top 10%, but the top spots are going to go to CrossFit fiends from the area.  There's been some love and some hate on the blog about CrossFit so I'll let you know how it goes. May even throw in a gym review.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I can handle a 5k, a rope climb, a fiery pit, and a couple of guys at the finish line with awesome yet slightly effeminate abs and over-sized American Gladiator Q-Tips.

Cliffhanger photo right here. Would love to see if he actually followed through on the swing. Source

Also, I've been to Thermopylae. The spirit of Leonidas will push me at every step.

Molon labe,
LSF

Surfcycle Plague 1: Heat

Think way, way back to late June in the summer of 2012. Facebook was aglow with mobile updates of triple digit car dashboard thermometers, people updating "SO HOT OUTSIDE!!!!!!lol", or "omg al gore was right!", and others responding, "it's summer, dumdum", or posting a Fox News article refuting global warming. Ah yes, it certainly was fun to share the temperature, politics, and science. We all learned from each other...

MEANWHILE

I was sweating my baguettes off at Andersen Cycle Works in Framingham as they finished installing the saddlebags which would carry my luggage for two weeks and a suit for a wedding the next day (~4 cubic feet for poindexters people who like numbers).

I asked Mr. Andersen for any advice on my first trip. To be honest with you, readers, I was surprised:

"Go fast. Stay in front of all the cars or else you'll get complacent." Kaaaay. I was still taking turns with shakingly rigid arms and thinking through each turn as a procedure in list form. Proooolly not gonna stay in front of all the cars.

"Keep your jacket zipped up. You want to keep your sweat in to stay cool. You'll get dehydrated from the wind." "That is another thing that I am not going to do," I thought... defiantly. Because I don't play by anyone's rules, not even my own, like Craig Hoffman.

I completely ignored the experienced motorcyclist's tips and took off. I stopped every hour to hydrate and show off my awesome motorcycle.

After an hour, my jacket sleeves were stuck to my arms and the inside of my helmet smelled like used gym shorts. Luckily I only had 26 hours to go.

Keep riding,
LSF

PS: Blogging milestone of strikethrough-a-word-and-replace-it-with-something-less-offensive achieved.

The Six Plagues of the Surfcycle Diaries

Bear with a change in scope of the blog. It doesn't have to be all about advice or how you do this or that. It doesn't even have to be about athletic stuff. You, beloved reader, come here for two things: laughs and celebrities.

We exercise to live and not live to exercise... unlike what those hardcore motivational Pinterest posters would have us believe. Well maybe they don't but the hardcore levels reach Way Too High for an endstate of being healthy and being really really good looking.

To satisfy my lust for doing awesome stuff I bought a motorcycle. I two-birds-one-stoned it with a surfing trip I've been meaning to take since last year and went down the east coast for a couple of weeks.

I understand that motorcycles are dangerous. Even if you're a good driver... er rider... er driver, whatever, you're still extremely susceptible to getting hit by cell phone users, the elderly, and nerds.

Motorcycles can only stop so fast and only have so many swerve options. If you're not lucky, you could end up like Lawrence of Arabia, Lance Murdoch (you'll really like this clip if you like barely-audible Spanish), or, worse, Gary Busey. A+ clip of Busey btw, don't miss it.

But seriously, with a weekend course on riding and two days on the roads of Boston, taking off on a 2200 mile road and sea trip from Boston, MA to Wilmington, NC was a major risk which I would not recommend for the weak or faint of heart. It seemed like everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I was visited by the Six Plagues of the Surfcycle Sojourn.

Heat
Rain
Sleet
Killer
Spiders
Sand

Strap in for a Jumanji-like adventure.

Keep riding,
LSF

PS: Is Pinterest still cool? Do people go on there? Is it just for women?
PPS: Check out them sassy sox up there.
PPPS: Just cause you were curious--

I Can Tell You Right Now That Crooked Arrows Is Going To Be A Terrible Movie

"Crooked Arrows" which has coined itself as the first great (Native) American lacrosse movie lands in cinemas nationwide this weekend.

And it's about darn time. Baseball has "Field of Dreams", "Bull Durham", "Moneyball", and "A League of Their Own". Basketball has "Hoosiers", "He Got Game", "Space Jam", and "Air Bud". Even chess has "Searching for Bobby Fischer". Time for lax to hit the silver screen besides American Pie.

Hennyway, it's about a dude who wants to take over his family's casino but must prove himself to the tribe by coaching a lacrosse team. Makes sense. Dude can coach lax, dude can run a casino. I get that.

Source

Looks like there's a good looking lady the protagonist chases after. There's a rival team that is white, rich, has first names like Hunter and Barrett, and is generally arrogant. The Native American team is a ragtag bunch that is not that into lacrosse, their heritage, each other, hard work, or having cool uniforms. But I'll bet our main man can change all that.

So now that my brief overview and that trailer have got you all excited for it, you're thinking, "Sounds like a quality flick, what's LSF's deal? How could this be bad?" Well I'll tell you: I'm not in it.

It just so happens that I auditioned to be in it about a year ago. They were doing a casting call for players in Wellesley and a friend at work asked if I had heard about it. They were looking for talented lacrosse players age 18-25. Well shoot, at age 27, in a helmet, I didn't look a day over 32 and was passable as 25... which was supposed to be passable as 18.

A chance to be a part of the first great (Native) American lacrosse movie? Sign me up.

On a day's notice, I showed up to the audition, not having held a stick in 16 months with kids that were on summer break from their college programs. I blended in ALLLLLLRRIIIIIIIGHT until the agility drills. The cleats I used in high school weren't working on turf. When going from full speed to full stop I fell straight on my butt and was immediately cut from the audition.

The morals of the story?
-Agility takes training
-Equip properly
-This movie is going to stink

Anyway, if you lax go see it.

Join the Tribe,
LSF

PS: I'd say Stiffler absolutely nailed the lax bro part. Chris Klein missed the mark a bit. It wasn't until "Just Friends" that he truly embodied lax braudacity by wooing babes left and right with "Jamie Smiles". Just Jamie in this case though.
PPS: Just looked it up on IMDB and one of the first 20 in the cast is "Tilty Sunglasses Guy". Why have I not seen this twice?