Rabid Biker in Progress!

So I recently went for my first bike ride of the season.  I mean my first one out on the open road.  Not on my Wii or on a bike at the gym which is hard but doesn’t actually go anywhere despite reporting back to me that I have gone some fabulous distance (these I do all the time). 

So this is the first clue (many more to follow) that I’m not what you’d call a serious biker - my first ride comes in June and not say March when you can conceivably get on the road without frost bite and snow banks.  But I thought it was time as I am allegedly doing another triathlon this year.  Another clue as to my lack of biking prowess is that this was in fact my first time on my bike since I got off my bike to start my run at a triathlon last September – the number was still on it.  Getting going was quite an ordeal.  I couldn’t find my helmet and when I did I discovered that a fairly large family of spiders had made a home of it.  Getting them out was not as scream and freak free as I would have liked but it happened (ok fine my husband may have been involved but spiders are my Achilles heel.  They have too many limbs, it’s not right.  So then I couldn’t find my sneakers.  These I do wear a little more frequently but still they seemed to have gotten lost and just when I was ready to don a pair of flip flops because seriously what’s the difference I’m just pedaling not running (clue number three I’m not a real biker?) I found them in my car. 

So then I’m off.  It’s 2 miles to the bike trails by my house and I’m all “ok this isn’t so bad” when I get there thinking I can do this.  The trail is about 4 miles and then it’s another 3 back to my house.  That’s 9 miles ( I am so much better at math than biking).  It would have to do even though the course of the Tri would be 12.5.  I’d work my way up to something closer to 12 miles at some point in the summer. 

It does start to feel a little harder a mile or so into the trails but I soldier on.  Maybe I am a biker after all?  Oh no, not so fast.  Confidence begins to waiver on the trail however as Mrs. Van Uppity speeds by me on a banana yellow bike ringing her bell (that part may be as made up as her name) with a neon pink shirt and matching neon pink helmet.  Yup she passed me.  Like I was standing still.  I took a deep breath and tried to keep up using her scrunchied pony tail swishing back and forth up ahead as motivation. 

Then a gentleman passes me. A gentleman of somewhat advanced years with folds in his elbows that reminded me of that game we used to play in middle school.  The fortune teller one where you pick a color and then the person counts out the letters and then opens one of the panels.  Anyway, he passes me too.  Clue number 67 that I’m not a real biker I suppose (one for each fold).  Then come to find out they are a couple.  I know this because as the trail passes over the road they stop to fight about whether they needed to wait to cross as traffic may or may not yield.  I take this opportunity to speed ahead.  I may be the world’s slowest biker but I can tempt traffic with the best of them.   I did go to school in Boston where if you wait for the cars to actually stop as opposed to slow down you’d forever remain on the sidewalk.  So I start pedaling faster trying to leave Mr. and Mrs. Van Uppity in the dust sure that any minute little Susie Van Uppity on her little Schwinn ten speed with the banana seat and a basket full of Barbies will whiz by.  But I mange to stay ahead, thanks mostly to three more road passes where I’m sure more arguing about the best way to proceed slows them down considerably.

So now I have to do this like a hundred more time before my race in August and I wonder  . . . how will I survive?  Maybe with some more motivation from the Van Uppties I’ll be ready in time. 

We’ll talk chocolate again on Monday!