Biker Chicks

Yesterday morning, I rode with the Development 3 group at the San Diego Bicycle Club ride.  Development 3 is where you start learning how to really ride with a big group on the road.  We went 35.87 miles, from La Jolla -->Rancho Santa Fe-->Cardiff-By-The-Sea-->Solana Beach-->Del Mar-->La Jolla.  It was so fun!

In the two weeks that I've had my bike, I've ridden it over 100 miles.  Can you believe that?

For those of you who don't ride (or have a rider in your life), it is customary to wear shoes that attach to your bike pedals.  The confusing terminology of this is using "clipless pedals", and yet the rider "clips in".  Anyway, I tried that with my mountain bike a few years ago, and it only ended in pain and humiliation.  You see, if you're clipped in, you have to clip out in order to put your foot on the ground.  If you can't unclip fast enough, over you go onto the ground with your bike on top of you.  Not fun.  I totally stopped even trying to do that and sold my nice Sidi bike shoes, since they sat under my desk at work for an entire year, gathering dust.  But being clipped in improves the efficiency of your riding by A LOT.


At least five people hassled me yesterday about using flat pedals, so I guess I will be trying again sometime soon-ish.

Three quotes of the day that just amused the heck out of me--

1) " You must be pretty strong to be able to get up Torrey Pines Hill on flat pedals."--random "real team" biker guy.

2)  "I can't let the gal with the flat pedals beat me up the hill.  Aw, crap!"--Group leader, when I beat him up the hill.

3)  "Oh, you're a runner.  That's why you're so strong."--Group leader (I think that he must be from Utah originally, because he pronounced "roots" as "ruts" and told me that he used to do ballroom dance.

But anyway, those things amused me because of all of the years I spent not being thought of as strong or athletic and because I haven't been a consistent runner.  What I wanted to say was, "I'm strong because I'm strong".  R says that I've finally found a sport that I'm naturally good at.

Last night, we went to dinner at some new friends' house.  The wife is a professional mountain biker.  Her particular skill is riding a single-speed bike in cross-country races.  I have always thought that she's one of those people who has always been sporty and naturally-talented.  But she told me that she hasn't been mountain-biking all that long, and she never really was that athletic.  She played collegiate basketball, but she's quite tall so that was kind of a given that she'd play basketball.


But anyway, she just kind of stumbled into being a champion mountain biker, and she totally rocks at it.  She's grateful to have found her niche, but she laments that her major talent is to be a long-distance rider.  She wishes that she could have found something that doesn't take 12 hours to complete.

Read Kathryn's blog at  "Crash Test Mommy".  It's linked here and also in my "Look Inside" list.