I may have to change the name of my blog because I now own a road bike as well as a mountain bike. How it came about is a story which we shall revisit at a later time, but suffice it to say, that last pitiful story made Jim feel sorry for me enough to get one. Either that, or he's afraid I'm gonna wear the tread off my nice mountain bike tires!
This bike is actually a hybrid, with skinny tires and is so light I can lift it with one arm. Talk about a difference in performance! I was actually in front of Andrea, or at least keeping up with her today.
We started out in the nice, calm subdivision and worked our way toward the marked triathalon trail. We started in on those rolling hills. They lead to steep, roller coaster like hills, so if you get a good run at it on the way down (and your bike is light) you can pretty much coast up the next hill, pedaling more toward the top. I couldn't believe it! I was smoking this ride!! I don't stink at this after all!!!
The turns got sharper, the hills got steeper. I was looking for Vomit Hill (Edwards Drive), I knew it was coming. She tried to slip it by me but I saw the sign as we turned. "Edwards Drive." I said. "You noticed that, huh?" She laughed. O boy. More steep hills and curves, nothing too awfully bad. I saw the street of doom from the last ride, the one where I was in a horizontal position PUSHING my bike. This was the area she got us lost in before, and I pointed out as much. She just laughed and said we'd be ok if we just followed the arrows, and then, the arrow looked like a U-turn. "What?!" She exclaimed. "We TURN around?"
Now we were lost again. She had just asked me 10 minutes before if I had time and here again, I told her I had TEN minutes. When will I ever learn?!? "Ok, I just know that we'll eventually make it back if we follow these arrows! We followed the arrows and before I realized it, we were ON Vomit Hill.
I had read in a blog yesterday that if you sit straight up on the hills, you are working your thighs. If you lean forward, you work your butt. We girls had already decided we needed the latter working for us, so the steeper this hill got, the more forward I leaned. Andrea was behind me giggling, watching my form and working on her own, she knew our goal here. Of course, I was hollering and exclaiming, which was making it worse to keep composure and push through. We made it half way up to a street veering left, and thankfully this was where the blue arrows pointed, YAY!!!!
We stopped here, because we couldn't breathe. Actually, I was the worse for wear, practicing my dog-in-heat pant. I let out a few moans and groans too. And then, Andrea named it "Vomit and Diahrrea Hill". Which is what we would have done, had we climbed the entire thing.
I told her next time, I was driving us right to Vomit and Diahrreah Hill, we were riding up, back down, and leaving. That would be enough workout for that day. And after that, we would drive the entire neighborhood with my GPS so that next time I told her 10 more minutes, it could actually BE TEN MORE MINUTES!!! (Pretty sure we ended up doing 30 more minutes instead of ten.)
I also told her I had no need to do leg day at the gym anymore as long as I rode with her twice a week. One day riding with her getting us lost more than makes up for two days at the gym! Love, you, Andrea!! (Someday I'll tell you about Andrea teaching me to swim laps. She's so resourceful!)
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