The adventure has begun. New York City was an absolute blast. We also spent a fair amount of time in Jersey City, which was a lovely little treat. I grew up in New Jersey and have always had complicated feelings about it, but it’s been nearly two decades since I’ve lived there, and I’m just now finally getting to the point where the nostalgia feels soft.

Existing as a teenager with undiagnosed autism made high school a more challenging experience than I could appreciate at the time. I had plenty of friends and occupied myself with every activity under the sun. But I was miserable most of the time.

In reality, being an emo teen at the turn of the century wasn’t uncommon, but it felt like a nightmare from which I may never escape.

As a cherry on top, my dad passed away in February of my senior year of high school. I was 17, and definitely not equipped to handle losing a parent. Not that anyone ever is.

I don’t have a point here, but I think I was trying to express the idea that New Jersey felt like pain for a long time. I associated it with a very unpleasant time in my life that I had to escape from. And now, the more lovely memories are starting to shine brighter than the painful ones. The friends I made, the shenanigans I got into, the opportunities I was granted.

Piscataway, New Jersey was actually a wonderful place to grow up, and I’m really happy I was able to have that experience. It certainly offset most of the bad stuff in the best ways. But yes, I had a great time seeing old friends and making new ones.

The Dadbod Cycling group ride was super chill. The weather was absolutely perfect. And prospect park feels a lot flatter now that I live in Spain. I have really started to value riding with community more and more. It’s lovely, and fills my heart with so much joy.

Will and I are very excited about our road trip. I’m so proud of myself for planning some down days in the chaos. I can’t wait to reunite with a few of The Black Foxes in a few days. And after that i’ll finally get to see the Tetons. I am SOOO excited to see the Tetons.

I’m trying to find a horseback riding tour either through Yellowstone, the Tetons, or both. If you know of a good one, send it my way. It’s been so great to sit and dream up what I want to get into, and then just go do it.

A few updates from the bike racing world. So you may remember I wrote about the protests at La Vuelta, the grand tour that was happening in Spain. Well, that concluded on Sunday, and boy did those folks create a lot of disruption during the past three weeks.

The police arrested over 20 people over the course of the race, and there were multiple crashes, shortened stages, results cancellations, and no official podium ceremony at the end of it all. The riders put together a parking lot celebration standing on coolers with the numbers written in sharpie on the front.

The protestors weren’t playing. They saw an opportunity for maximum disruption and really went for it. There was one instance where a protester literally jumped out of the bushes into the passing peloton. SO dangerous. The rider they hit had to eventually abandon.

It’s so interesting to me to see the reactions of riders and spectators as everyone tries to reconcile everything. In a sport where it’s VERY easy to access to the athletes it’s bringin up a lot of concerns for what the future looks like.

On the women’s side of things, they had to cancel a stage of the Tour de l’Ardeche because the French were protesting all over the country and they had to divert the police escorts from the race to manage those protests.

They told the organizers that they could hold the race WITHOUT the escorts, but that sounds like a recipe for absolute disaster, so they just cancelled the stage altogether.

Also, tangentially related, there are now very strong rumors circulating that Biniam Girmay (first African stage winner at the Tour de France) is joining Israel Premier Tech IPT) next season.

Basically, his team is merging with another team so he has a bit of freedom of movement with his current contract. I imagine IPT is offering him boatloads of money to continue their sportswashing campaign.

They likely feel he’ll be good for their image, but in reality, I think it’ll just be bad for his. Remember, friends. Genocide is bad. Always.

If these rumors are true, it is very disappointing, but that’s his business and his choice to make. It will definitely put his fans in the unfortunate position to choose to continue to support him or not. Nobody is important enough to justify a genocide in MY opinion, but we shall see what happens. I hope my birthday twin makes good choices here.

I think that’s it for now. Maybe by next week, I will have finally wrapped my head around why it annoys me that folks are going all in on Serena Williams for being an ambassador for weight loss drugs. But I still need to sit with that one for a bit longer.

If you haven’t already, please help spread the word about my upcoming road cycling skills camp in LA on October 10-12.

Thanks for reading! Until next time!

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