Is cycling nirvana possible?
I’ve watched cycling for as long as I can remember. It’s thrilling to me to watch men and women push themselves to feats of physical stamina that us mere mortals can only dream of. Though most of us can’t attain those heights of physical performance we still push ourselves to ride harder and lose that extra weight, lower the time on our favorite route by a few seconds or hang with the elite riders on the Saturday morning group ride. Those are our feats of physical stamina.
When watching the pros ride their bicycles it’s amazing how effortlessly they propel themselves and how comfortable they look on their machines. They ride for hours at a time in what appears to be euphoric comfort while trashing their bodies in superhuman efforts. Is the ability to ride for hours at a time actually comfortable to them or do they suffer as much as I do? I’m not talking about suffering from a physical exertion stand point but rather suffering from actually being in the saddle and hunched over the bars for a significant period of time. For me, that period of time is limited to about an hour or so. After that I begin to feel discomfort and wonder if every cyclist feels what I’m feeling or is there something wrong with me or my equipment.
Read MoreBike Ride 27 – Cycling through the pain
It’s 5:00 AM again and the alarm is blaring. I probably should have went to bed earlier last night. Whatever. I resist the temptation to hit the snooze button (actually, I accidentally hit the off button instead of snooze) and crawled out of bed. I was out the door quick this morning.
Once outside I immediately noticed the humidity. There was a little fog as well. The streets were wet in spots from a thunderstorm last night. The moon was low in the east (barely above the treeline) and looked like a fingernail. Pretty cool. See the kind of stuff you miss when you sleep in? I reset my bike computer, crawled on the Cannondale, and rolled out of the driveway.
To say that I was uncomfortable would be an understatement. I could tell I had had way too much time off the bike because I was really feeling yesterday’s ride. Especially in my rear. That could be because of one of two reasons. First, it was unaccustomed to this abuse after the layoff, and second, it could be because of the shorts I was wearing. I had on a cheap pair of Nashbar shorts that don’t have very good padding. I really need to throw them out. I’m not saying all of Nashbar’s stuff is bad because my favorite set of bibs are Nashbar brand and they’re great. You just have to be careful with the chamois insert. The shorts I wore today are nothing more than some padding sewn into the crotch of the shorts. My bibs use the Trico Sports gel chamois which is much better. I know there’s better stuff out there but I can’t afford dropping a ton of cash on bibs. I’m making due with what I have.
Anyway, as I rode I was able to work out some of the kinks but the thing that really started to bother me was my triceps. They were pretty sore about half-way through.
As I pulled up to the intersection near my house, it was nice to see the school bus on my right (in the lane going straight), and the truck behind me (in the left turn lane with me), stay several feet behind me to give me room. I appreciated that. I’m always uncomfortable at this intersection and they made it easier for me today.
That’s about it. A nice simple ride of 13 miles in 58:30. Again, nothing hard while I’m re-acclimatizing to riding.
I saw no other cyclists today and only a couple of runners.
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