I crossed a milestone yesterday. I’m pretty sure, if my math is correct, that I surpassed the big 100-mile mark for the season on the road bike. Thank you. I was already in the high nineties before I started the ride, so look out 200 miles, here I come. I may not be on track for yet another 5000-plus mile season, as some people are, but I should make it to 1000, and considering that I have other interests, such as throwing Frisbees at trees and drinking beer, watching the Red Sox and drinking beer, and mountain biking and drinking beer, that isn’t too shabby.
The first one hundred miles of the season are always the hardest. The bicycle seat is simply not the best interface between a human and a machine, and every spring, your butt has to go through a period of re-acclimation while it toughens up. Likewise, your neck and back take their sweet old time adjusting to being in a bicycle riding position for multiple hours, and your legs, like lost souls, have to search for themselves. It is the time of the season where you are perfectly content to ride solo, while you struggle up that hill, and suffer against the inevitable homeward bound headwind that sucks out of you whatever energy you might have left.
But then, as the miles pile up, your body starts to come around, and that thirty-mile ride that almost killed you in April becomes merely a warm up lap. Your legs stay under you, your butt becomes as tough as a leather football helmet, and your neck and back, well, they still hurt like hell, but you embrace the pain and push on like a Nepalese Sherpa carrying an ill-prepared tourist suffering from elevation sickness down the mountain, while dragging an injured mountain goat.
That may be a bit of an exaggeration, unless of course you’re talking about those first 100 miles.
The first one hundred miles of the season are always the hardest. The bicycle seat is simply not the best interface between a human and a machine, and every spring, your butt has to go through a period of re-acclimation while it toughens up. Likewise, your neck and back take their sweet old time adjusting to being in a bicycle riding position for multiple hours, and your legs, like lost souls, have to search for themselves. It is the time of the season where you are perfectly content to ride solo, while you struggle up that hill, and suffer against the inevitable homeward bound headwind that sucks out of you whatever energy you might have left.
But then, as the miles pile up, your body starts to come around, and that thirty-mile ride that almost killed you in April becomes merely a warm up lap. Your legs stay under you, your butt becomes as tough as a leather football helmet, and your neck and back, well, they still hurt like hell, but you embrace the pain and push on like a Nepalese Sherpa carrying an ill-prepared tourist suffering from elevation sickness down the mountain, while dragging an injured mountain goat.
That may be a bit of an exaggeration, unless of course you’re talking about those first 100 miles.
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