A Few Rides

Have slipped out of my cycling funk, mostly by lowering my expectations of myself I think.  When you immerse yourself in a sport its too easy to think that  because you are reading about it, you should be able to do it.  Of course training and fitness are what matter.  Mr. Lady Roadie didn't make his century (long story -- he and my dad are doing the route this weekend), so I got to go out twice last weekend.  The first, just a hilly 20 miler, reminded me that I need to spend more time on the bike.  My quads were aching, which I took as a good thing since that's the first step towards getting stronger.  The second was just a recovery ride down Beach Drive, which is closed to car traffic on weekends and is therefore popular amongst both cycling groups and kids on tricycles (I'll get into the dangers of this another day).  Mr. Lady Roadie had to ask me to slow down, which is a first!  (Of course this is because he had put in a lot more miles than me the day before).

We also did one of the Potomac Pedalers CC group rides this week, just a short 13 miler.  I was nervous starting out but immediately realized that it was a very relaxed ride.  We cut through residential neighborhoods and bike paths (with a few short, STEEP hills that killed my knees), and I tried (unsuccessfully) to master riding in an unpredictable group.  Too often I found myself having to hit my brakes too hard, and then pedal hard to make up for the loss of momentum, in order to keep up.  Towards the end of the ride the speed picked up a bit, and we got dropped a tad, although it was more a motivational issue than anything else -- I was tired of all that starting and stopping!  I need to learn to not overreact to the changes of the riders around me.  Not sure if I'd do the ride again, as I wasn't a fan of all the bike path riding, but I'm glad we're trying out different rides in the area and meeting new cyclists (even older ones).