My first long ride

I took my (new) bike out for my first long ride of the season. I wouldn't call it new exactly considering I took this circa 1995 Huffy out of the garbage this past winter. I will post pictures later as this is a must see it to believe it bike. It had almost no wear on it's flat 26 inch tire's knobs. which is about the only thing it has going for it. After changing its tube and filling the other with air I had to remove the front derailuir and front brake due to the rusted out cables that made them inoperable. This may be considered a good thing since the bike weighs around 34 pounds and this was a weight savings of 1 pound, so now it's around 33. I moved the chain to the large wheel on the front and now have between 3 and 4 gears depending on how well the remaining derailieur works that day. Both wheels have a nice wobble but because the rear brakes hardly work at least they don't rub the wheel every spin. The frame has a well maintained coat of black spray paint over the remaining decals that has bubbled up all over but has yet to reveal the covered rust.

The reason I am blogging about such a crap bike is because I am saving for my Raleigh RX1 which has been in layaway since my first payment from my soccer coaching check I received in Oct. of 08. Family money is for everything from new kids clothes to new IPod apps for the kids and hair dye but when it comes to money for dads new bike, well that comes once everyone else has everything they need, which is never.

I think this is where this blog should be very interesting. To go from training on a beat up garbage bike to competing in races in the fall on a bike that has a fork alone that retails for $500. If the thought of finding the $700 remaining balance of my RX1 isn't daunting enough, I now have road bike fever! More on that later.

This winter I realized that if I haven't ridden at all before getting my new bike , I would be so out of shape I wouldn't appreciate it when I finally did ride it. Luckily my (luxury) apartment has a gym with a stationary trainer. It is fairly nice with a recumbent type chair rather than a seat and various settings. This was my first training in years other than a 56 mile ride I took last fall on my mom's Giant Sedona hybrid with front shocks. I road 30 min. to start then hit the stair master for 15 min followed by weights. I did the same workout for a couple weeks upping my cycling time to 60 min at varying resistance. I road to my dads house about a month ago which is about 15 miles round trip.

So this weekend with the kids at their grandma's I knew I was going for a ride. I decided to head to downtown Flint to see the trail of a 50-60 person group ride I was invited to the following day. The trail heads north which is out of my way so I headed to the towards my dads to fill up my water bottle.

On the way I passed by the skate park I have been wanting to see since it was built. The skate park replaced the tennis courts I used to play at while my parts played tennis. Mountain bikes and skate ramps don't really go together but that didn't stop me from taking a couple jumps. I saw a kid on the side who seemed reluctant to take his BMX on the ramps so I asked him whats the deal. He said the rules said the no pedal bikes are allowed. I couldn't believe it. Skaters break the rules all the time by skating where it is clearly posted that it is not allowed. Rob from Rob and Big on MTV skates with a body guard for the specific purpose of fighting off security guards in such areas. I asked one of the skaters if he would mind if the little guy road him bike and he said "well the sign says no bikes" I said "but you don't mind do you, skaters are supposed to be cool". I couldn't believe it! Skaters being rude to BMX kids. I left telling the kid to makes sure he sticks up for himself.

My dad was asleep so I didn't get to rest as long as I would have like. Rather then turning down my road I decided to head to Assenmachers to try a real road bike. Of course they were closed so I went 5 miles out of my way wish I hadn't done because the headwind on the final 3 miles of my 40 mile trip was so bad I had to walk at a couple points to stop my legs from burning. I also was feeling the fatigue of the day.