Tour de Thumb

With my 2008 “target” event less than seven weeks away I decided it’s time to start focusing my workouts. To my surprise, my 2009 FOX RLC 100 F-Series front MTB bouncer arrived Wednesday after a true patience-testing 3 months of waiting. After installing this new beauty, I set the desired PSI and went to bed. When I awoke, I discovered the fork had lost about half its pressure overnight…bad fork karma I guess.

The departure begins...

However, I did not let this little mechanical mishap set me back from the desired ETD for my excursion up to the tip of the thumb.


I’ve made this trek before on a road bike. However, this time I decided the weapon of choice was my Top Fuel and the road of choice was dirt.


Epic destination rides have a much different feel than loop rides. When you set off you have to mentally segment the ride or the overwhelming time and distance will quickly eat away at your psyche and you could go into survival mode, get a feeling of strandedness and start cussing at the sky.


Unfortunately, I was inflicted with a 25mph headwind the ENTIRE way. At many times it was a battle to simply keep the wheels at 15mph. I tried to tell myself that this would be great mental training for the 24-hour race. When I was training for a marathon, back in September I once said that running is merely training yourself to sustain an annoying level of discomfort…you don’t really turn yourself inside out or dig way deep into the pain locker. Unfortunately, this training ride was much like training for a marathon.


For those of you who don’t know, the farm roads of the Thumb are painfully/mind-numbingly flat, filled with high winds that carry the pleasant stench of cow/pig manure, and offer a variety of dogs of all shapes and sizes that have been waiting their whole lives for some spandex clad idiot to roll by their guarded homestead so they can chase your ankles for several miles all the while barking a creating a scene that Old Man Withers watches from his window only to retell the story of the spandex clad idiot who rode by to every local affiliate within the town. In many ways, riding through these areas almost makes you feel like a space alien when the local slack-jawed yokel folk stare at you in complete wonderment when you roll by.


How's this for postcard fodder!...Amish country baby! I was wishing oh so much to get into an all out city limit sprint with a horse and buggy with Ezekial or Jebediah at the reigns but it never happened.



This is no joke, my parents live right off of Finkel road...actually named after my ancestors.


Total Distance: 136
Total Ride Time: 8hr 38min
All in all, the trek was very worthwhile. The rewards included great race training, quality spent time with the Fam, additional daily long rides throughout the weekend, participation in a parade, and homage to the land of Port Hope where virtually all of the Finkelstein heritage can be traced back to.

Skipping rocks is the ultimate soul soothing activity until you throw your arm out.


A special moment with my new niece and Godchild.


Double fisting some Oberon with mom...priceless