Learning to Ride

My mom used to tell a story to my friends to embarrass me, about that time, when I was 15 years old, in the summer of 1983, when I rode my bike in the middle of the night in the pouring rain from Plainfield to Mantoloking, NJ (approximately 50 miles). I did it to finish a conversation. It didn’t end well. It was not raining when I left. I didn’t think through just how long that ride would take me to accomplish or how wet and muddy I’d be upon arrival. Over the years, I have found some self-compassion for that young woman that I was, and mostly think the research on brain maturation is true, but let’s be clear I was book smart and still an idiot at that time.

In college I used a bike or the bus as transportation until my senior year when I finally bought my first car. Since then, aside from the random holiday trip where short bike rides occurred (Thailand and Hawaii come to mind), I had not ridden a bike for more than about 5 miles at a time until recently.

So, about two months ago, I ended up on a very short ride in the snow on a bike made just for that purpose. And since then I have been going a few times a week with someone who has patiently coached many of his friends and family into being avid bikers. As he says, he’s boiling the frog slowly. That frog is me.

This past weekend, we crushed my prior distance records, going 51 miles on Saturday and 70 on Sunday.

The Saturday ride was prettier – all road – up into the front range mountains. Stunning with a lot of hills!

The Sunday ride was longer but flatter – almost all Denver bike paths so I would learn to hate the bike paths! It was a really unique way to see a city I’ve been living in since 1995. I don’t want to do that specific route again, but I’m glad I had the chance to see my city that way.

I am still holding the brakes for almost all the downs. Max speed 36 mph when my friend is going 50+. I am getting stronger at the ups but am still slow. And, I am getting less terrified of cars as they are much less scary than the people and dogs and kids on the bike paths.

I have even started investing in bike gear. As tired as my legs are, biking seems much less hard on the body than running, and I can certainly do it for longer. Now I just need to get over my fear of mountain biking and rocks and dirt and turning on single track trails.