Hello World!
...and all that other fun stuff you must say when starting a new online public journal. Hopefully you find this BLOG entertaining and most of all motivating to a point where you just must join the crowd.
Here it is Fall in Tucson (feels like Summer I suppose to most of those visiting from outside of the southwest) and everyone is gearing up for the annual Tour De Tucson.
Official Tour Site
Last year I had the privelege of volunteering at a booth sponsored by my company. After watching the melee of so many natives and visitors crossing the finish line, I knew I must give this a try. Well, 10 months later I finally managed to start riding. Certainly not the timeline I was hoping to carry throughout the year, so I've come on strong over the last two weeks. I used to be a heavy duty street rider in my teens, although then I had a one-speed BMX bike and knew nothing about cyclist communities. Well, I knew the Tour De France, I had seend the weird looking outfits, and every now and then there were massive amounts of fanatics riding through my small hometown in said weird looking outfits.
So how about now?
Day One was spent riding the 0.3 mile oval track I invented that runs around my local neighborhood. I didn't have a helmet yet and wanted to be sure to comply with that rule before I made it out to the main road. Meanwhile, my soon to be cyclist cronies were actually riding towards my hometown in their weird looking outfits. So I rode around my oval track a couple of dozen times and, if nothing else, really thought more about whether or not smoking cigarettes ought to be a lifelong habit after all.
One Week Later I managed to land my first 10 miles! My route consisted of 0.5 miles of dustbowl dirt road (read washboard) 4.75 miles of uphill and 4.75 miles of downhill on a rural two lane road. Of course, I was pretty impressed with the distance until I took my first ride with my company's beginners group. We actually managed 19 miles that day. Later on I learned that a 7mph pace is what made it a 2 hour ride. Factor that into the 66 mile route I would like to ride in the Tour de Tucson, and well let's just say my butt is gonna be sore.
Next I was pointed to Ajo Bikes to get some padded gloves, padded shorts (read weird looking outfit), and a padded seat. I've since learned that long periods of time on a bicycle seat is uncomfortable enough so you'd better buy anything and everything they sell with padding. I also got new brake pads, although the salesperson had a difficult time selling them to me (I kept remembering the cost associated with replacing my car's brake pads) until he showed me the 8$ price tag.
:)))
Well then, BUMMER... they took my bike in for a tune up and my work schedule changed. Morning after morning went by and I couldn't ride any longer. Finally, this past Friday I had the time in the afternoon to take it out for a quick 5 mile ride. Yep, I still got it. I even apparently had improved my stride because the uphill portion of my ride went by very quick. Then I turned around and realized I had a tailwind the whole time. I actually had to pedal harder downhill than I had uphill. Well I figured I should still be ok for Saturday morning's ride. And I was. Another 19 mile ride (this time it only took 1.5hrs). One more stop at the bike store to pick up some spare tubes, a couple of CO2 cartridges (for said tubes), my final half of weird looking outfit (jersey), and WOOHOO!!! a computer (odometer, mph, avg speed, etc).
And now finally Sunday. Well I had planned on seeing what a 30 mile ride would feel like by riding in my local area, but I also knew that one of the more popular testing grounds of the team I have joined is the trip up Mt. Lemmon. I had heard of this many times, heard about the euphoria of reaching certain milemarkers, and knew from driving experience that it is ALL UPHILL.
Ugh! Even the trip to the base of the mountain is mostly uphill. That was cool though because I still managed an average of 10.5mph 'til I got to the base. Don't ask what I averaged from there on up. My original goal was to make it to milemarker 1, and interestingly enough, as I passed milemarker 1 I thought, "that's it?" so I pressed on to see how tough it would be to get to milemarker 2 (check out the cool phone pic up there on the left), and did it!
Now was the ultimate scare. This is most certainly the longest ride I have ever attempted downhill. Not only that but there was no bike path to speak of. Up until today I had never even ridden any route with less than a 4 foot bike path. In fact, I believe part of the reason I made it to milemarker 2 was because I was getting pretty anxious about the long downhill ride. Thank God I have new brake pads. I made it down safe, and the brief moments I took to glance down at my computer told me that I was going above 20mph. That was enough to make me quit looking at my computer until I got down safe. Then I found out I had a max speed of 23.6... phew!
So my legs are sore and my back is tight, but I'm sure those are all muscles thanking me for finally getting them out and away from the computers, video games, and droning cable television they never get to exercise in front of. Who knows what next week will bring?
So I figured here would be a great place to post stats and other tidbits that may prove to be more exciting for me than anyone else, and hopefully everyone else finds something even more exciting in this BLOG.
My goal: to bring one more person on this journey and discover all of the joys of cycling wherever/whoever you are.
