Link: http://pages.teamintraining.org/nyc/txtri09/lhughes

Recently, one of my very close friends embarked on a crusade to help a very worthy cause. About 138,530 people in the United States will find out they have leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma this year and a child or adult is expected to lose their fight against these diseases every ten minutes. Lamar Hughes has chosen to be proactive in his endeavor to help the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society fight for a cure for these diseases while bettering himself in a search for a healthier lifestyle.

Lamar has joined more than 380,000 former volunteers of Team in Training to help raise awareness and money for research in exchange for training and resources for competing in an endurance event. On May 25, 2009, Lamar will compete in his very first triathlon. But this is not just any triathlon, it is an Olympic distance event that includes a 0.9 mile swim, a 24 mile bike ride and a 6 mile run. To make matters even more daunting, Lamar is 6'3" and 245 lbs of limited aerobic ability. Of course, he's going to kill me for saying that but this fact makes his effort all the more challenging and would be a personal triumph once completed.

Lamar's fundraising goal is to reach $4500 in donations. The concept is pretty simple. His friends and family agree to donate towards a positive cause while he endures months of hard work that culminates into a few hours of pain and suffering. But when the pain ends and the suffering subsides, he will have accomplished two goals. He would be comforted to know that he took a hands-on approach in helping to find a cure for these blood cancers while obtaining a healthier lifestyle for himself and his family.

I have to say that as a friend I am very proud of Lamar. If anyone can set a goal and accomplish it, it would be him. To be able to have the discipline needed to help not only yourself, but hundreds of thousands of strangers who are counting on you is a lot of pressure. But with the help of you and I, Lamar has nothing to worry about.

Would you help Lamar and I raise cancer awareness and donate to a good cause? Please follow this link to learn more about Lamar Hughes and his goals, updates on his training as well as to contribute your tax-deductible donation to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society today.

Thanks for reading.

To help, please follow the link below:

Lamar Hughes Team in Training Page

Link: http://www.cafepress.com/savethelegs

The Save The Legs!!! Store is now open! Thanks to Cafepress, show your support for Save The Legs and the sport of cycling by wearing or displaying your Save The Legs!!! apparel or product. There, you will find T-shirts as well as other apparel, stickers, housewares, hats, bags and pet products with the STL banner tastefully displayed.

Any profits earned through the Save The Legs!!! store will go towards maintaining and improving this website as well as the promotion of the sport of cycling. If you have any requests, please feel free to contact me. Thanks in advance for your patronage, you may click here to go to the store.

About a week after the end of this year's Tour de France, I have developed post Tour withdrawal. I'm left wondering what the rest of the cycling season will bring. The spring classics have come and gone, the Giro cemented Alberto Contador (Astana) as the best cyclists living and the Tour has finally confirmed Carlos Sastre (Team CSC-Saxo Bank) a winner that we had always felt he could be.

Every July brings a culmination to the cycling season. It is the cima coppi, if you will, of the entire sport. Too bad it is right smack in the middle of the season and not at the end. For potential Tour winners, their year effectively ends once they cross the finish line in Paris and any event they may ride in between then and the end of the season may be token. But this year may be different. Carlos Sastre has confirmed that he will ride the Vuelta a España, setting up a potential showdown with last year's Tour winner Contador. Will there even be a match up? Contador has trained exclusively for the Vuelta while it remains to be seen if Sastre can muster the motivation needed to get through another 3 week race. Throw in the defending champ, Denis Menchov (Rabobank), whose participation is not yet confirmed, and Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel Euskadi) and you have a race!

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Since Greg is part of the current poll on the right side, I thought you might be interested in this classic video. As a treat to cycling fans back in the late 80s and early 90s, I found this old commercial featuring the man at the time, Greg LeMond. Do you remember this? Are you rolling your eyes when you see this? Well, I can remember thinking, "Geez, that's a big helmet. Why is he wearing that ugly thing?" You'll remember helmets back then consisted of foam strips wrapped in leather, then tied to look like an outfielder's baseball glove and were quite popular for the non-helmet wearing pro peloton. Too bad they couldn't save you from a fall or make you look cooler.

Those of you around back then will remember that Greg was one of the first advocates of helmet wearing in professional races. He and his teammates would be one of the few who would wear helmets in the Tour, at least on the flat stages. A step in the right direction and setting a good example for our young.

Here's the video

Link: http://www.bikemonthnyc.org/

Did you know that May is Bike Month here in New York City? If you ride the subways you will see the ads plastered on the train cars. It's a great initiative to get people out and on their bikes. Bike New York's 5-borough tour, the ride my wife and I did last week was one of the major events. All of this bike talk reminds me of what my favorite NYC ride is.

The most thrilling bike route in Manhattan for me is on 5th Avenue from E. 90th St south to you name it! It was always a way for me to inject some excitement to the end of my ride in Central Park. As some of you know, riding around and around the park can be a bit boring, kind of NASCAR like. So when my ride ends, I exit the park at E. 90th and continue south on 5th. The thrill comes immediately. As I ride past 86th St, I know the transverse is near, meaning a boat load of cars wanting to cut me off. Then comes the Met, ah those tourists. The Met is very challenging in that you never know when a cab will want to pull over to the curb. Couple that with the ubiquitous tour buses and you have the game of Frogger! But that's not it. Do some of these tourists know to look both ways before crossing? Nothing is more embarrassing than crashing, I mean bumping, into a tourist after using your ninja-like reflexes to avoid a few tons of steel!

Okay, so that only gets me to E. 79th St, another transverse, ditto. From there, it's E. 72nd St. This intersection is not too hard because there's no transverse. You do, however, want to avoid those damn buses turning from 72nd and immediately gunning for that bus stop on 5th. But they have the right of way, you say? Duh! Red light = ride faster to avoid the oncoming traffic!

Please wear a helmet.

The ride can go on and on, but I chose to turn off of 5th to head home (no, I don't live on the UES anymore). Plus, you get the picture. And please, safety first. I don't recommend this unless you are a NYC bike messenger.

Do you have a favorite ride in NYC? If so, let's hear about it.

We're back, we did it. In all, we rode for 51 miles today, including the extra miles getting to the start and getting home from the end. I'm too tired to write more. I will update this post later with some images.
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Ok, I'm back. It's been 6 days. My wife and I have fully recovered though we can't commit to when we'll be back on our bikes again. This ride was indeed a personal triumph for us.

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Link: http://www.bikenewyork.org

My wife and I are getting ready to do the 5 borough bike tour here in New York City tomorrow morning (see the link). We've been busy trying get some miles in for the last month. It's been hard, the weather hasn't been as warm as we'd like so we are very short on training. Of course, we've been trying to save the legs as often as possible.

For those of you that aren't familiar with this ride, it is a yearly event that takes ten's of thousands of riders through the closed streets of Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and yes, Staten Island. Though, we barely touch The Bronx and Staten Island. It is 42 miles through the canyons of Manhattan, the concrete of the FDR and the steel of some of New York City's most famous bridges. We start in lower Manhattan and travel up 6th Avenue, through Central Park, up into Harlem and over into The Bronx. From there, we return into Manhattan, ride south on the FDR and the cross over into Queens via the Queensboro Bridge. Astoria Park is next where there is a huge festival. Then it's due south through Brooklyn. We travel on the BQE making our way towards the Verrazano Bridge. From there, we cross over into Staten Island where the finish line is.

I'm out of breath, so wish us luck!