I spent one night last week

riding my bike with proper roadies. If you haven’t figured it out by now I am more of an off-road cyclist. Anyway there were two of us off-road types riding with two proper roadies. We didn’t ride very far, but we did ride at a brisk pace. Funny how cycling can be.. you think you are doing ok assembling your fitness for the upcoming riding season and some guy shows up with freakishly big calves and shows you what the inside of your lungs look like.

I snapped a few photos with my mobile phone. . .now my phone usually does an ok job, (most of my photos on this site are from my phone) not a good job in this case. The blurry photos are neat tho’. They depict how I felt after about 10 miles. Holding a tire as tight as I could in a dizzy state.

My head was spinning as fast as my pedals.

I was in preservation mode a lot of the time, not wanting to explode. Riding fast enough to stay with everyone and not fall too far back on climbs.. I figured there would come a time when I would need my reserves.

That time did come, kind of. The ride was coming to an end and I was up front when I was told there was a big hill coming and I should drop back and rest for a minute. The hill came and I was still feeling good when someone started to sprint. One person behind me answered then I responded with him. He quickly dropped back (turned out due to a cramp) and I continued to follow the rider in front of me. As we continued to climb I decided to go harder and try to over-take him. I did.. I passed him and sprinted away.. I surprised myself.. Looking back as he was slowly moving backwards. I crested the hill and continued to hammer to another hill… hammered over that hill and looked back and there was only one rider behind me.. The other off-road guy. He was coming to tell me everyone turned off about a mile bacl. WHAT!!!

I thought I left everyone.. was feeling all good with my chest out when they turned.. It’s sorta like finding out your girlfriend fakes her orgasims.
That’s what I get for going off the front when I wasn’t familiar with the route we were riding. Lesson learned.. If I am winning a sprint.. it’s because I am racing by myself.

This ride marked the first time I toom my road bike out. I have been riding my cross bike of the road for a few weeks now due to road conditions and crap weather. I decided I liked the compact crank on my cross bike so much I had to swap things around.

My cross bike lost some parts in order to equip my road bike easier gears..

Then there’s the neglect of my MTB bike. I cannot wait for the woods to dry up so we can rip some trails. Poor bike has a flat tire.

Sunday we headed out again to get some mileage in. We figured we clock around 50 with enough climbing thrown in to make our legs ache. All was well until someone lost a pedal on a climb. That’s what you get for riding a cross bike with fenders and off-road tires on the road.

We were close enough to a friends house to ride over and ask for some tools, (we had some, just not a socket). We fixed the pedal, topped off our water and managed to gain a rider. Attempting to finish our ride and add some miles to it a puncture took place, then the pedal fell off again. This time a bushing was damaged and we had little choice but to get it together and start to head home. Once again we were near a house of a friend of a riders and went over there to get tools.

Once fixed the tool lending fellow asked where the rest of his pedal was. We replied that is the pedal. He told up that his bike had real pedals . . Notice the lack of chain and duct tape covered pedals. Nice..

I was able to get in over 50 miles but all the breaks to fix the broken bikes slowed us down. I felt good overall and am doing ok at establishing my fitness for MTB season. Mud . . go away already.

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I would like offer these tri goodies to the Lemming…. I know you have a deep love for TRI racing and who wouldn’t want a temporary Tri tattoo?

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