First Bike Ride!

I made my first bike ride this morning. It was only 10 miles to work, but it was a hilly ride. I rode with two co-workers who have been doing alot of riding. They just finished the 3-state 3-mountain ride 2 weeks ago in a pouring rain. I am sure I slowed them down, but they said I did fine. Hopefully I will continue to build my endurance up (especially on the hills) and increase my speed to not be such an anchor for them!

The ride this morning started out kind of cold. It was about 48 and very foggy. We all had blinking lights and I had a head light and we had no issues with the traffic. For the most part the ride was fine, but there was one section where I was going up a hill and a school bus was behind me. Since I was going so slow and the bus was not passing me, I pulled into a drive way to let them by. When I did, I hit a bump and my bike computer poped off and basically re-set it self. to use it again, I would have to enter the wheel diameter and re-enter the time and everything. I decided that heck with it. The other two both had computers also, so I knew how far we had gone.

The hills are by far the hardest for me. I still weigh about 267 and going up hills with the extra weight is hard. It is also hard to remember which way to shift the gears. I am still getting used to the shifters incorporated in the brake levers and several times I up-shifted when I meant to down-shift. This would slow me drastically when I was starting a hill. By the time I got to the top, I would be way behind and have to catch up on the down side. The good thing is that my weight made it easier to catch them!

Well, riding in this morning was fun, and riding home this afternoon will hopefully be just as fun.

Later,
Scott