A boy among men

For the last two weeks I started to ride with Rich and the guys. He had been telling me about the rides for some time now, but I never had the guts to actually show up and see if I could make it to the end. He kept telling me that they wouldn't leave me behind, but I wasn't sure if that would be the case. On my first ride, we rode the reverse Tanome loop and I hung in there, but was dusted on the hills. I knew this would be my weakness, but I never knew how well Rich was at hills. The guy is like a machine on hills and he can really grind up them out of his seat. I tried to mimic this once and had to sit back down and spin the rest of the way up. Overall, I didn't fall to far behind and had enough guts to make an attack on Rich on the last hill, he let me get ahead for about a second before he shot right over the top like a bullet.



On my second ride about eight people showed up and we rode a tough course. This was by far my worst experience on a bike. While I was riding up the second terribly steep hill, my left foot unclipped and I feel right over. I’m not sure what was worse, the moral pain of looking dumb, or the huge knot on my left knee. Soon after that I blew out my rear tire and remember that I forgot to put my saddle bag back on. Luckily Andy came to the rescue and helped me fix the tire. After that incident I caught up to the group only to be left on five point’s road. I wasn’t sure which way they went so I found my way home though familiar roads. When I arrived back at the shop I took off my front wheel and put them in the trunk along with my keys. I shut the trunk without realizing my keys were in there. So there I was, after the horrible ride left outside my car with my bike (minus the front wheel) no cell phone, wallet, or keys. Luckily some student let me borrow his phone so I could call my wife.

I road again with the guys on Thursday and had a much better ride. It was suppose to be a decent casual ride, but that thought didn’t last more than a mile. I got into a decent pace by the airport and that seemed to bring light to the rest of the guys. We ended up riding the Tanoma loop and made continuous attacks throughout the ride. I had a great ride and my mood was much better after the previous days ride.