Introductions - Hello from Clayton, NC

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum and to biking. I started in August by purchasing a Trek 4500 and riding mostly on trails with a group of women. Had a great time doing this, but, I've found that I like road riding just as well or even better.

I got to ride pretty regularly until the time change--since then it's been really hard to ride at all. I've had a few weekend rides with the "girls" and occasionally gotten in some time on the road. My longest has only been 20 miles. I plan on getting a road bike in the next 4-6 weeks and my goals are to start off training for a metric century then work up to a full century by the fall (hopefully).

I don't think that I will ever be racing, just looking to ride for the love of cycling, to have a better level of fitness, and to lose some of the extra weight I've been carrying around.

Umm, guess that's all for now. Oh yeah, I have a 15yr son, 18yr daughter and a really great husband!

Later, Karen.

Karen, can you get more of your family involved in cycling? Sounds like you could have your own team there. I have a friend in Colorado who did an incredible amount of riding in the region along the Virginia/North Carolina border. I rode a lot in horse country south of D.C. decades ago. Do not worry about riding with mixed groups even if the ladies are outnumbered. Just drop the phrase, "My husband . . ." often enough. I mention MY Wife when I talk to a new lady on a club ride so she will know I am not coming on to her.
Clubs usually know the nicer places to ride. North Carolina has a lot of route maps if you want to try some longer rides.

Hey neighbor, welcome to Bike Forums. When you MTB, have you tried Harris Lake? If not, let me recommend it. By the way, I'm having the same daylight savings time problem. Must be something about NC and the warm weather.

Ken,
I wish that I could get my family more involved! My son has no interest in riding, except down the street to his friends' house. I even took him to the LBS and bought a bike for him, but he didn't want to get anything with gears, so he rides a bmx type. Unfortunately, my daughter doesn't live with us and even if she did, she's not the outdoorsey (sp?) type :(

When I bought my bike, I told him that I would get him one as well so that we could do this together. Well, turns out that I like riding trails and/or roads 10x more than he does. He's been riding trails with me a couple of times and is like "whatever". I have a passion for riding now and he doesn't. So, don't really know what to do about that. He's about 90-95% supportive right now. Don't know what it'll be like after I get the new bike and start training for these metric and full centuries and joining group rides....


Roccobike,
Yeah, I ride Harris and Crabtree. Really like both of them. I haven't ridden anything else yet. I ride with a group of girlz (GRID-girlz riding in dirt) and the club led rides have pretty much stopped here in the winter. They'll pick back up as the weather warms and daylight increases. As much as I would like to see it snow here, I really wish that it would hurry up and get warm.

Later, Karen.

just testing to see if the avatar i added works...

just testing to see if the avatar i added works...
GO 'C A N E S ! ! !

Oh yeah... and hello from the Bull City :beer:

Hello...............Clayton, thats near Raleigh I think.

yep, clayton is 'bout 10miles down 70East towards smithfield.

Oh Smithfield.................you live near Smithfileds BBQ & Chicken? Yummmmmmm!