Friday, July 20, 2007

My ass re post

About a month ago I bought a bike. It's a beautiful, shiny red bike. It has big thick tires and front suspension, quick release tires and 21 one wonderfully easy to change gears. Built for comfort.

Yesterday the weather finally cleared enough for me to ride my bike for the first time. I bought my bike so I could ride it to work. I figured I had to do something after a full winter of sitting on my ass, eating bon bons and watching TV. Biking to work would be the perfect solution.
In a town full of the most wicked hills known to man I am fortunate to have a fairly flat route to work....so I thought.
It turns out that spending the winter...ok several winters and summers, sitting on your ass watching TV and eating bon bons is not the best training plan for bike riding.
But I digress.
Yesterday I woke up to the sound of birds singing and the much missed sun shining through my window.
Today is the day , I thought . Today I will ride my bike to work.
I set about my morning routine of coffee, shower and so on. Adding in some water consummation to ensure good hydration for my ride. I packed up my back pack with necessities and work clothes. Donned my shiny silver helmet and grabbed my bike lock.
Helmet and pack on, lock in hand I made my way to the shed where my pretty bike had been housed for the last month. I tripped over the lawn mower. Moved a big box of heavy stuff out of the way and proceeded to release my new ride from it's winter prison.
I walked it through the yard and up the steps to the porch. Then down the steps to the front door, which after many flights down would take me and my new baby to the flat street that we would take the few blocks to my office. Life was good. The sun shone down on us. Encouraging us to become one. Woman and bike together against the wind.
On the way down the stairs I banged my baby into the wall, became tangled in the empty 5 gallon water bottles waiting for the nice water guy to take them away and slipped on a piece of dryer lint slamming my shin into the peddle of my bike. In return my much loved bicycle hurled me down the stairs at an alarming rate making my heart thud rapidly in fear that I would die with out having left the porch.
At the bottom of the stairs we made up again and managed to make it all the way to the street with out incident.
I threw my leg over my bike and began to pedal. The wind was in my hair-well not all my hair- I was wearing my helmet which tends to get in the way of the wind through your hair feeling that made childhood bike riding so much fun.
The wind blew the sides of my hair. I picked up speed thanks to a small downward facing hill. It was exhilarating. Until I got to the bottom of the gentle slope. As we all know, what goes down must go up in the high paced world of bike riding. It was ok though, its just a little hill and I have these nifty one touch shifters. I played with the shifters.
Since this was the first time I had been on my bike I didn't really know how the gears worked. I ended up in low gear. It made the gentle slope feel like a mountain. I tried to gear up but by the time I figured it out I was peddling down hill at an alarming rate. In fact it felt as if I was not in gear at all. I looked down to make sure the chain hadn't fallen of.
It hadn't.
I got it back to a respectable gear just in time to hit an up hill slope. Sweat was pouring down my back and I was only a block from my house. Finally after many tortuously sloping hills I made to the flat heaven that is Baker street.
Two blocks down only three to go.
I was blessed with green lights all the way. Finally I got to the corner where I would turn to go to my office. I looked at the steep hill up to the parking garage and decided to ride 1 block farther and take the less challenging alley to the garage entrance. It was down hill right to the end so I had enough momentum to make it to the entrance. But some employee was in the garage so I had to keep riding up the slope that led to the bicycle cage. Couldn't let him think I was out of shape.
Like he couldn't tell from my wide ass hanging over the sides of my bicycle seat and all the sweat pouring down my red face!

Finally I made it to the top. Almost. So I stopped my wretched bike and swung my leg over to the ground, at which point both legs buckled. Not all the way. I didn't fall, but it was obvious to anyone watching that I had pushed myself to my physical limit.
I walked my bike to the bike cage and locked it up. My heavy breathing echoed against the concrete walls of the parking garage. I sat down to rest before taking the six stairs up to the door of my office. My hand shook as I tried to find the right key. Finally I made it through the door, down the hall and collapsed in complete exhaustion into my chair. Two hours later I was finally breathing properly and my face no longer looked like I had just run the Boston marathon in 3 hours and 10 minutes.
I was still alive.
Of course I still had to ride the damn thing home.
That, my friends, is tomorrows story!

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