Biking

Blue Blazer

I've never been a huge fan of heights, so rock climbing has never been high on my priority list. Though, I do find pulling my body weight, plus gear, up the the side of a sheer cliff with sweaty knuckles quite invigorating. Now, imagine doing that on a bike! I attempted to ascend a very steep will laced with loose rock with roughly four inches of surface area worth of rubber backed by one hundred and fifty three pounds of muscle.

I broke out my bike yesterday for the first time sense January. I had procrastinated long enough. I've been meaning to start my biking season at the beginning of April... that didn't happen! But, I have officially started, just a month late... minor detail. Part of me was saying "Hey, it's May first! Get the Blue Blazer out and put the peddle to the metal" while the other half of me was say "nah, it's cloudy, misting, and almost time for school to let out, which means crazy high-school drivers, which means that you have a higher risk of becoming a Belgian Waffle!" I told the latter half to shut up. Be equated to European breakfast foods has never been high on my priority list, so I left my lazy half behind and hit the streets.

I got to the top of our road and realized that I grew sense I hung op my wheels last year. Either that or my bike shrunk, but that seemed a little unlikely, so I stuck with my first theory. Either way, the seat was about an inch to low and it completely threw me off. Now, you might be thinking "An inch, Big Deal! ... NOT!" But, if you have ever done serious biking, you should know that an inch is a lot! That's one more inch that you cant stretch out your leg, one more inch worth of power you cant put into the peddle which means it's one more inch of energy wasted... per peddle pump! And when you are up around 500 - 700 RPM's, that is a lot of unnecessary waste!

So, as I'm sure you guessed, I raised my seat about an inch. I had already been laughed at for having my seat three and a half feet off the ground. Now people can laugh at the new height! Bring it on! I have to admit, it does feel like I'm riding a moose sometimes - the Mount Everest seat and my custom added vertical handle-bars that slightly resemble antlers, but only slightly, mind you...

Okay, I'm starting to ramble so I'm going to get to the trip itself.

I ended up doing about seven miles of both street riding and trail riding. I had one point where I did a little bit of mountain biking - that's when I went rock climbing with a bike... However, that was very lame mountain biking. What is the difference between trail riding and mountain biking? Besides the name, trail riding is done on a bike trail, class six road or four-wheeler trail and is normally just a fun ride through the woods. Mountain biking is the the four-wheeling or white water rafting of the biking family, normally something along the lines of biking up and down a mountain (...imagine that...) or any kind of biking where you blow out your shocks and get a brain massage from rocks and roots. Your feet will spend more time pushing you away stones or trees, so don't do it if you have bad reflexes... like me. I've been asked what I prefer for biking. To be honest, I've really only been mountain biking once, so that doesn't count. I would say that it depends on the time of day and the area that I would be biking. I'n my opinion, nothing beats a hard, flat, clay trail in the woods. you can fly and the only thing you really have to look out for are chipmunks. But a newly paved tarmac that hasn't been been riddled with potholes is nice if the traffic is minimal! Oh look! I was rambling again.

Here are some pics from yesterdays trip. Sorry for the poor quality, they were taken from my flip phone.

I really like this picture!

The river from the bridge

If you look closely, you can see my bike leaning against the guard rail.

The river from where i took the last picture.

Being the over achiever that I am, I decided that this bad boy biker gang of one would terrorize the downtown once again today! (Like the skinny guy on the peddle powered Harley is going to scare anyone...) I did nine miles today with about half on the trail, half on the road. I attempted to bike the power lines but found out that it might be a better option to water ski it instead. You don't notice how much water there is when the trail is buried under three feet of snow. Suddenly the snow is gone and the miniature rivers and ponds end their vanishing act. My chain fell off so my hands are still stained with grease, but I'm okay with that cause it makes me look tough.

Total mileage for the past two days: Just a little over 16 miles. Not bad for a guy who is out of shape and only two days in...