Well today was my first inaugrual bike ride, not to be confused with my second inagural bike ride, which is yet to come. I took my bike to work, just left it in the trunk, and then stopped off at the Guild trail up Ochs highway. I must say, I knew I was out of shape, I knew that, and I knew the mtn biking I did as a kid to teenager was not super intense nor necessarily that off road, but man this was hard, hard to a whole new level. I haven't ridden a bike in a long time. When we lived in Ft. O i'd run every once in a while but those muscles are totally different than you're biking muscles. So needless to say I had to stop a few times more than I'd have liked.
One time I stopped and chatted with this guy who was coming down the trail. He felt a need to justify his, in his mind, "cheap-o bike." I too had the need to justify the fact that this was my first ride. So once we had justified ourselves and our short comings we talked it up a bit right near Ruby Falls, then went our ways, his down, mine unfortunately up. I didn't make it much farther up past ruby falls, maybe a mile up, but I wasn't sure. I basically went for about an 45 minute bike ride in total, but I wasn't feeling too proud of myself. I was glad i made it out there and look forward to trying to improve.
I hadn't realized how much your for arms and triceps are used when riding a mtn bike off road. When I was a kid, I'm not sure if it was just my mtn bike's handles were longer or if I was stronger, or what but my arms got really tired going down hill trying to control the bike, which wasn't easy as I was going just about as fast as I felt comfortable with, which was pretty fast. It was a fun trip, hard going up, but fun coming back down. No wrecks, bruises or broken bones to speak of.
I will say that biking shorts will probably have to be purchased though, the ones with the padding. The ride just takes its toll on you're dairy air. But have no fear friends, in the interests of everyone who would have to see me in bike shorts I've opted for the baggier ones that hide your figure a bit better. I would've bought them yesterday but they didn't have any at the shop.
Shoes that clip into your peddals (which also requires the pedals) would be nice as well too. My feet kept slipping off on the way up and its hard cause you're working so hard to keep the momentum going and then one slip and you've lost it and its so hard to start it again.
I probably won't ride tomorrow as i have a good deal to do, but saturday I want to get out and enjoy the day even if its yucky. Though the brewfest might cramp that, we'll see, maybe ride in the morning and brew in the evening.
Well, I was all pumped last year when I bought my bike. I rode it like 3 times, then away for the winter it went.
I felt like total ass when I took up to the bike shop this summer to get it serviced because my front wheel was acting funky. The bike shop guy asked me if I had wiped out or taken any hard spills. Being that I rarely went fast enough to skin my hands if I fell, I was forced to tell him that there was a possibility that something got dropped on it while it was resting in the basement over the last year.