A new, but familiar journey

I'm stoked about The Ride this summer. It's going to be different from The Walk that John and I did last summer in some ways, but the same in others.

• Different: There are 5 of us. John, myself (Alex), a Liz, and two Billys
• Same: Still mostly guys (be prepared for more mentions of peeing outside - #1 & #2)
• Different: 40-ish miles a day rather than 20
• Same: Generally the same route. Some towns will be good to see again and some not as much.
• Different: no more getting picked up by people. 5 bikes makes that difficult, so we'll be rolling deep up to their front doors.
• Same: just like Blanche DuBois, we're going to be relying on the kindness of strangers. Okay, not strangers, but the reference doesn't work with "friends."
  
• Same: representing both sides of the rivalry in our group
• Different: Yankee fans are definitely in the majority. I'm leaving it up to Liz to represent for the Sox since she's much more qualified. I'm still a fan, but not enough to live up to the responsibility. So Yanks 3, Sox 1, Loser who doesn't follow baseball much 1
• Same: still trying to film for a potential project later on
• Different: biking will allow for more time and energy to do so
  

I could go on, but... I won't. I'm looking forward to getting more into the belly of the Rivalry. It'll be a very different dynamic now that there are more of us, and a true member of Red Sox Nation to give better support to the team than I ever could.

I came to the realization that no amount of reading books on the teams (which I've been doing some of) is going to make me a baseball guy, and that's fine. That doesn't diminish my curiosity regarding the Rivalry and the people on either side. People who are passionate about anything interest me, and I don't know if there's a better example of populations who are passionate about something than those on both sides of this debate.

Recommendation: check out The Rooters. It's a documentary about the Boston fans, from the original Royal Rooters to today. It's pretty impressive what they had going from the beginning. I got The New York Yankees: Team of the Century from Netflix today. I'll let you know how that goes.

Correction: One of the Billys is a Mets fan, not a Yankees fan. It's good to have an impartial guy on the crew who actually knows something about baseball. Final count: Red Sox 1, Yankees 2, Doesn't like either 1, Idiot who doesn't even know who's riding with him 1 (that one is me)