Ever since I got into running, I’ve been thinking about cycling as well. Mostly because it’s great cross training and because it’s low impact, which running is not. I test rode a few bikes. One of them in particular was love at first ride. It was a nice, light Cannondale carbon fiber bike made specifically for women and because it’s an old model (new bike, old model), it was on sale for half of the original retail price. I got a bike this past Sunday. It was not THE bike. I decided to start with a cheap hybrid from Sports Authority to see how it goes and then maybe upgrade to THE bike….if it’s still available.
Turns out, I have loved every minute I’ve spent cycling, even though it’s a cheap, heavy, slow bike. The first day I rode, I rode just under 7 miles. I rode 21.5 miles today with little effort. For the first 16 miles, I met up with two other members of a local cycling club. It was a ride for beginners and we went slow. I got serious bike envy. We rode past (or rather, were passed by) a lot of “real” cyclists in their kickass road bikes at crazy speeds. Dang it, I want one. It was really fun, even though I had to leave the house at 6:30am to be at the meeting place by 7am. We rode from Coral Reef Park to Blackpoint Marina and rested there for a few minutes before riding back. My Garmin FR 405cx crapped out for about a mile during mile 12, this is evident in the map, I did not ride through the houses. This is the route we took:
Right after I got home we attached the (cheap) bike trailer we bought last night to my bike and I took The Monkey out on a ride. I thought he was going to hate the helmet but he didn’t mind it. He actually enjoyed the ride. I didn’t hear a peep from him the whole time except to count and blow me kisses. I rode for 5.5 miles out and back and it was as hard as the whole 16 miles I rode earlier. Pulling a trailer is not cake! The funny thing is that when I ride alone, no one even looks at me but today I got ALL kinds of looks from people. Mostly disbelief at the fact that I was actually pulling a little human being in the trailer! One woman actually said “Oh my god, she’s pulling a kid!”. What? Me? No! I’m just pulling an empty trailer! Duh.
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