My little ride

Today I completed my first Century bicycle ride. Yup, one hundred miles on a bicycle. Before I start the story I really want to thank my sister Ellen and her husband Bill for doing this with me. (SUCKERS!!!) Like all events in life who you trick into doing it with you can make a world of difference. So while I sincerely apologize for bringing this to Robert the Slacker’s attention, and thus yours, I am truly grateful you were both along for this hurt myself event. Sam, I am sure I would have enjoyed riding with you but I know I could not have kept up. Jim, run and hide, I curse you for mentioning this event to me.

I got there late to find Sam had ditched us and Ellen and Bill were waiting patiently. Ellen had called so I warned her I’d be late plus they did not really want to take off with the crowd anyway. It is probably a good thing Sam had left; he would have been bored with us. We got underway about half an hour late but we did not care since we were there for a relaxing ride.

The journey was beautiful. The road was good, the traffic light, and the weather was perfect. (Translation: it rained, it rained hard) I really like riding through the countryside and looking at the houses and scenery. We strolled along, enjoyed each other’s company, told stories and sang songs. It did rain three or four time during the first fifty miles but we endured. Rain is both a blessing and a curse. It sucks to go through but it keeps the temperature down and helps you cool off. So while annoying it was a good thing. The best part was Burke’s Garden itself which is a valley up in the mountains. I don’t know exactly why it seemed so much more attractive than the other farmland we saw but all of us agreed it was truly beautiful. There is a chance we were hallucinating at this point.

While up there we stopped at the General Store. When we entered the wonderful woman running the place told us that they were offering ham, turkey and peanut butter sandwiches for two dollars. My first thought was that eating peanut butter with turkey and ham sounded really disgusting. My second thought was when in Rome (or Burke’s Garden) do as the Romans do. Fortunately before I opened my mouth Ellen asked which one of the three I was going to choose. (thank you Ellen)

While riding I was thinking about blogging and I had planned to tell you that it was not as bad as I thought it would be. That was until about mile sixty. If I ever suggest to you riding a century tell me to hold on, go to the nearest computer, find this entry and print it. I am proud and glad that I did this. I will probably be stupid enough to do another century but the last forty miles were hard. The last twenty were almost painful and in this route it was mostly downhill the last forty. If you are going to do a century ride train better than I did. I will agree that this is probably a great first century to do.

Again, Ellen and Bill, thank you very much. I really would have been in trouble without you. Ellen, I really don't want my name to be associated with pain so I promise the next couple events we do will be purely social and fun.

And for those of you who wear padded shorts – I laugh at you, I thumb my nose at you, you silly people. Of course I’ll have to do it while sitting on a special cushion. :)