"Just Like Riding A Bike" Is A Lie!

Not long ago, my dear friends TT, Libby, and I decided to run a triathlon for beginners held each year near where we all live.  We have talked about doing something like this in the past but this time we committed to do it and to keep each other motivated during training.  We have several months before the race so we have lots of time to train.  This is a very good thing since I for one will definitely need it!  Because we all live in a large metro area and do not live very close to each other, we are planning to train on our own most days and train together one or two days per week.  We will each make posts here to chronicle our experience.

Today was our first day training together and we decided to start with riding bikes.  Libby and I had not ridden real bikes since we were kids, which was longer ago than either of us would like to admit.  TT has had a bike for a while and rides it with her family, but has not done a lot of biking recently.  So today was an adventure for all of us and we were excited to get started. 

You know that saying “Just like riding a bike?”  People say this when referring to something that you never forget no matter how long it has been since you have done it.  I was sort of expecting this saying to mean that I would be able to just hop on the bike and take off riding.  That is not quite what happened for me today.  Libby jumped on her bike and did great from the very beginning.  She and TT started to ride onto the trail, but I discovered quickly that this was going to be harder than I expected. 

First, my bike was in the lowest gear so I had no control over it and was going way too fast on the gravel leading to the paved trail.  This seemed like an easy fix, and TT offered to hop on my bike to crank up the gears for me.  This is when I learned that I could not jump off of the bike so easily and fell onto the gravel from a stopped position.  That was the start of the real problems I had during the ride.  Most of my problems seemed to come from my fear of falling and, you know, hitting my head on concrete or ripping my face.

After TT fixed the gear problem, we took off on the trail, only to stop quickly because I felt like I was going to fall again.  This was the first of MANY stops on the trail to get me past some problem.  There was going up hills, going down hills, going around curves, running off the trail, running over a stray piece of pine straw, etc…

We ended up stopping at a picnic area about 0.85 miles into the trail and decided to head back from there.  On the ride back there were fewer stops and I felt much more confident in my riding ability.  I mean, there were still stops, but not quite as many.  And a couple of the stops on the way back were due to the fact that I am completely out of shape.  That is kind of why I expected the beginning of training to be difficult, so no surprises there! 

TT and Libby were SO patient with me and helped me figure out all of the technical shortcomings I was having.  We had discussed before today that one of the benefits of the three of us working together on this is that we can keep each other motivated and committed throughout the process.  Little did I know that my first real struggle would be on day one.  But they really helped me and got me through all of the issues.  They would not let me quit and did not leave me.  TT even tied my shoe at one point so I wouldn’t have to deal with getting off the bike and back on (this was before Libby showed me why I was having such a hard time with that part – I was doing it wrong!).

So, Day One is done.  And I can honestly say I would not have made it through that ride without TT and Libby.  I would have given up and gone home somewhere around the first curve in the trail.  We survived my fears and ridiculously frequent stops, my under-performing brakes (not a good combination, by the way), Libby’s flat tire, and being out of shape!  It can only get better from here, right?  Right?