Confession

Those of you who read this blog and forward it to your friends (that was a hint) know that the

Feeling great at first rest stop

previous Goldilocks group ride was a definite lemonade outing.

For the Cycle Salt Lake Century ride, I wanted good weather and I wanted to ride a long ways and I wanted to have fun.

This ride—we weren’t riding the 100-mile century—is chatted up as the flattest century route in Utah. With good reason. The hills aren’t hills, but rather inclines.

Still, I had a past with this ride.

Last year

• We had to go back to the house (almost an hour round trip) because I forgot my bike shoes.
• We got lost because everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) was already long gone and the markings out of the fairpark were dubious. Add six miles to the 37-mile course we’d chosen.
• My hands and feet went numb about ten miles from the end of the ride.
• I had to walk all the inclines.
• My chain fell off several times.
• My rear end was so sore on the way back I had to get off and walk a lot.

I’m laughing as I re-read this. Is anyone but me asking, “Why on earth are you still riding a bicycle?” There have actually been a LOT more times of pure joy on a bike than icky times. Really. I mean it. You just haven’t read me that long.

Startled

The weather was about as near perfect as you can get. I like to ride cool as opposed to warm, so starting out with a light wind jacket suited me. It stayed cool most of the day, with a few patches where I stopped and took off the jacket. Sunny with puffy clouds.

Last year, my average miles per hour was barely 9 miles an hour. This year it was 12.2. Surprised the heck out of me once when I looked down at my computer and I was sailing at 17 mph.

That overpass

Memories of last year flooded in as I approached the overpass. I saw the point where I’d had to stop and walk. Across the street, the place where my chain fell off as I was going downhill. I had panicked but managed to get myself off to the side of the road without causing a multi-cyclist pile up.

A zero-body fat guy in a pristine team jersey outfit stopped to see if I needed help. No way was I letting him get jump-out grease on him! (Have  you  experienced jump-out grease? It’s grease that no matter where you thought you were, you were in the area where the grease jumps out and gets on you. A nod of the head to Gail H. for that phraseology.)

But that was last year. This year, a different bike, maybe a different me. So I shifted down and up I went. Actually OUT OF THE SADDLE AND PUMPING! And went. And went until I was almost at the top and thought,

“Good golly, Miss Molly, I’m going to ride this freaking hill!”

I did.

I rode EVERY incline and didn’t have to get off and walk. Ever.

And my hands didn’t fall asleep!

A new way of looking at the numbers

The plucky adventure guy

At the first rest stop, when I ascertained from the ham radio operator that there was indeed a sag wagon who would bring me back to the fairpark start (and where our trusty Subaru adventure vehicle was waiting), I talked adventure guy into not returning the way we’d come last year for a 37-mile ride.

I enthused. “Let’s blow our wad by going ahead. Let’s keep going until we fall over and then have the sag wagon pick us up and take us back to the park!”

He was reluctant. A couple of concepts in my suggestion rankled him:

• Not finishing something official. The 37 mile is billed as that. Unlike the “let’s ride until we fall over” adventure I was espousing.
• Using the sag wagon.

The sag wagon is a service provided with a full-support organized ride. It’s for, well, when you sag out and you can’t go on or get hurt, or for whatever reason. Volunteers drive the route and look for people at the side of the road. If they slow down and ask, you give them a thumbs up if you’re actually are enjoying the scenery or trying to catch your breath. If you say, “Oh, thank God” and start crying, they get the idea you want in. Can you see, however, how the connotation of sag wagon is not one of victorious across-the-finish-line pedaling? Yeah. That’s where he was.

But I did have a point in my favor. Rather, a point in his rear end. He had decided to ride a new saddle that day. May I interject to NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, DO THAT. This new saddle was not working. In fact, it was pointedly not a good saddle for him. You get my drift? So I won him over that help would be immediate should his back end give out. We left the first rest stop at 17 miles and pedaled on.

The change in perspective enlivened me! To go as far as I wanted and have another option, ratherthan slogging back a way I’d already seen three times in two years. Yes! Since cycling does leave time for a rich thought life, I wondered what else could I think about differently and open the gates of Can Do?

Pedaling on

We saw great and wonderful mini farms, a happy Border Collie chasing cyclists from behind his fence, log homes next to McMansions, lilac-scented suburban streets, country roads. Nice and flat. After many miles, however, we began wondering if we’d missed the lunch stop. Although I’d had my nuts and fruit and a generic fig bar, I was thinking LUNCH. Adventure guy was thinking BUTT.

We were stopped by the side of the road pondering this when a woman (GOD, BLESS HER, PLEASE!) stopped on her return trip. “You’re four miles away,” she called across the road. “You can do it.” Our expressions must have been telling.

Sometimes bikers are nicest people.

The take away

We noshed on a build-your-own sandwich. I had turkey, swiss cheese and way too much mayo. It’d been nearly two months since mayo. It wasn’t nearly as good as I remembered. Neither was the cheese. Weird. Oh, and I ate Fritos. Yes, I ate voraciously and to my later chagrin. Adventure guy realized his end was at the end and we took the sag wagon back to the park.

End mileage: 37.44.

Just a teensy bit, but still further than last year. In the end (sorry, adventure guy, for the pointed pun), we went further than if we’d stayed on the familiar course. And that made all the difference.

I want to know:

• what could you think about differently and open the gates of Can Do?
• what’s any different this year than last with your body?
• where could you go if you deviate from what’s comfortable and usual?

Let’s talk!