To be honest, I'm not a diehard fixie rider or even a singlespeed rider since I don't have my own and end up bumming to borrow a friend's from time-to-time until I build up my bike. Also, I'm not a health freak. I do watch what I eat but that's mainly to avoid feeling nasty afterwards. Some foods just don't agree with me and the older I grow, the more I realise that those foods are fast-food. That said, on occassion, I do eat at McDonald's, Wendy's and the like.


Nope. Never have and never tried. I guess it was always counterintuitive. I am a bit of self-admitted pyro and when I was young, I always hated accidently breathing in fumes and smoke so I guess I could never see the logic of deliberately putting that stuff in my mouth. I admit that after listening to some people describe smoking a cigar and how well it went with say a glass of scotch, I was tempted but when I actually saw it happening, it seemed so unnatural to me that I lost all urge.


I never liked alcohol and especially beer until someone handed me a pint of Guinness in my freshman year of college and I realised that the stuff people were trying to shove at me before was not beer. Now I am pretty picky about my alcohol and I learned early on that cheap alcohol just makes me sick. I think the expensive stuff helps keep my drinking under control. I usually only drink in a social setting and never to the point of passing out. My rule of thumb is that if I can no longer discern the taste from the alcohol then I stop.


There are several items of food that I don't think I could live without. One of them is stuffed spinache pizza. I grew up in Chicago and thus grew up on Chicago-style hotdogs and stuffed spinache pizzas. I also can't ever give up crab (dungenous, king, giant pacific, you-name-it). I know some people might crucify me for this but the best crab I have ever found was at Bob Chinn's House of Crab near Palwaukee airport just north of Chicago. As far as other junk-food equivalents, I don't eat it all the time but am not draconian about avoiding it either. Yes, I know it's bad for me.


Honestly, I don't really know what kind of shape I'm in. I've been told by my flight physician that I'm in pretty good shape but I have never considered myself extraordinarily fit or an athlete. I ride my bike because I like to ride and the fitness benefits are simply that. For me, concentrating foremost on the fitness and athletic portion of any activity makes me lose interest. I'm in it for the fun.