Originally Posted by Digital Gee
You wake up, and part of you is trying to talk the rest of you out of riding this morning, whining mostly, of course, and you get dressed anyway, and you get on the bike, and you put in some miles (in my case, ten), and you feel the wind and the sun and the blood rushing through your veins, and you smile because you overcame the Inner Couch Potato once again, who is getting more and more upset with you because you ride?
Sure is to me!
Just come back from an evening ride. At 6pm I did not want to go, but still phoned my corider on the Tandem for a 6.30 start. Daylight is short at present so we only have 2 1/2 hours to do 30 miles and get a cup of coffee and a cake on the seafront 12 miles away. We got moving, but both of us felt sluggish, legs were tired, breathing a bit hard and the heart rate was up on normal readings. Got to the cafe and checked the computer. No wonder the legs were tired, breathing laboured and H.R. up. We had gone out at our fastest average speed for this ride. Continued on, Pulled one gear higher than normal up the big hill and were still talking to each other, even though the HR was in the upper limits. Got to the off road bits and steamed along, and realised that all our averages were higher. Then we had our highest record. We came off on a downhill at around 35mph.
IF I ever feel like chickening out on a ride again, I will put that thought to the back of my mind. That ride was fantastic, even if it felt like hard work for most of the way. Even the "off" had its good side as whilst waiting for the wife to recover us, we discovered a Local Beer that we had not tried before that was fantastic. It looks as though the only damage to the tandem is a shredded front tyre so other than a check on the wheel, we got away lightly.