A Taste of Humiliation Followed by a Winter Ride

I suffered yesterday getting to the bike ride. I was quite the Goldielocks, "It's too cold, it's too wet" blah, blah, blah. I also locked in on getting my new helmet which my loving wife threw up a mess-o honey do-s as roadblocks.

If you wish to purchase your worthless helmet you must first slay the Kraken!!!

Well Kraken slaying takes some time but around 2pm I was strolling into the magnificent Trek store with my son in tow. Who should I see walking in? Why intoIt of course!

Watching intoIt walk into the store reminded me a lot of Norm entering Cheers, everyone knew his name and I mean everyone! As I was opening the door I was bemoaning how cold the weather was and I get a flat stare from intoIt who mentions, "I did fifty-five this morning."

Oh. Well what do you say to that?! I'd still be on the bike if I was doing fifty five miles. Chagrined my son and I follow intoIt in the store where I'm greeted by the guy who sold me my Madone (after he said 'Hi' to intoIt of course, one must maintain protocol here). The first thing out of his mouth was, "Don't you love this weather? This is perfect weather for a ride! I'd be out all day on a day like today. How's that bike of yours?"

"Um, well I've put 11.5 miles on it. I don't plan on riding it today, you know the weather and all... don't want to get it salty..." I trail off lamely, "I plan on taking the 720 out later today if the weather improves," accidentally misnaming my commuter bike (a 520) for a recumbent exercise bike, I'm so flustered with the whole gotta ride today thing. I'm beginning to realize that next to these guys I'm a PIKER when it comes to unnatural bike love.

The sales guy looks at me piteously and with growing excitement takes me over to a bike on a trainer and starts showing me this Madone with electric shifters. I'm not real sure what the big deal is on the whole electric shifter thing, I guess it's like having an automatic vs manual in a car. He motions towards the bike, "Hop on and try it out!"

Naturally I never pass on an opportunity to humiliate myself and the guy who sold me my bike was happy to oblige. I'm not a flexible dude, particularly in jeans. My first attempt mounting the bike failed miserably causing my son to burst out in uncontrolled giggles before engaging in open taunts. I'm now eying the bike figuring it probably wont fall over and manage with a lot of prayer and grunting to get my leg over the saddle. I start pedaling and clicking shifters, it's OK I guess but I'm not a racer, I'm a dude who likes to pedal about. I'm also wondering what happens if the batteries go out on some eight hour biking nightmare.

I execute a 1.7 (out of 10) dismount without ripping my pants or falling over and wander off towards the helmets. I'm overhearing the bike sales dude and intoIt discuss the electric shifters, something about how the big ring shifter is really fast and the other regular gears they can't really tell the difference.

Oh my, there certainly are a lot of helmets here and they come in three sizes, S-M-L. I have a massively huge head (one of my nicknames in college was 'Bus Head' - sigh) so I select one (large) that matches the color of my bike (this is critical) and try it on. I look stupid, well OK more stupid. It almost looks like I'm wearing a blue mushroom on my head. My son is once again giggling, so I know where he stands on my appearance. I call across the store for an objective opinion. I mean how can you not look like a dork in one of those things?

"Hey, intoIt! Do I look like a dork in this thing?"

intoIt winces (not a good sign), "Well it does look a little small."

Starting to feel like a girl in a shoe store, I sigh and go back to my options. Ultimately I decide on the one I originally picked out (dorkiness be damned!) since it is very well vented, and I do get uncomfortable in my current helmet during the summer. More importantly it matches my bike color. I ponder what those large vents will do when then the sun shines down on my massive bald head. My son assures me I'll look like Darth Maul with large sunburned strips adorning my pate. Super! I can't wait to see folk struggling not to look at my sunburned strips, silently wondering what I'm dying from.

Always a fool when it comes to peer pressure, I get back home and decide I simply must ride. The weather, in my candy butt opinion, is 'tolerable' and I spend the next forty-five minutes frantically finding a leg tie (since I'm wearing sweat pants - for those who don't know it keeps your pants cuff out of the chain), water bottles and the Garmin. I also have to pump up the tires and finally I'm ready for my first winter ride.

bikerBabe had given me a litteny of advice on what to wear, it's in the mid-forties so I follow part of her advice, mainly about wearing regular gloves instead of biking gloves. What I learned was that my hands were fine but my ears got pretty cold. So on getting home I did a quick search and of course they have ear muffs for a bike!

There just comes a point where it no longer matters. Ya know? Take one look at this guy's pic and you can see the humiliation etched upon it BUT his ears are warm, unlike yours. Sacrifice looks for comfort? Honestly I already look like a complete dolt on the bike so what's it matter after you cross that line? This explains the bandanna I purchased during my helmet escapade.

This thing is bright day-glo yellow! I plan to wear it under my well ventilated helmet so that I don't end up with some weird sunburn pattern on my skull that looks like it resulted from a drunken trip to the local tattoo artist "Blind Eddie." When the time comes (Spring) I'm going to find out exactly how that day-glo yellow contrasts with the blue of my helmet. I'm going to look like one of the Matango, a weird, mutant mushroom person or a huge enraged bee. There will be a fine line when that time comes between the car driver steering well clear of that thing or mowing it down for the good of humanity ("I couldn't let such a monstrous aberration live, now could I?").

Yes, yes, I'll post pics of me in full regalia - sheesh.

So I hit the road taking the ole neighborhood route to the bike path I want to make my run on. I'm not ready to mix it up on the real road yet. It's wetter than I thought it would be with all the snow melting so I'm glad I'm on the 520 not quite ready to get my new bike dirty and spend the rest of Sunday sterilizing it. There are people out walking on the path but I only saw one couple on bikes. They looked beautiful together all shiny white teeth and happy smiles. I was headed home at that time so I was covered in road grime, well path grime, and feeling odd in my bright yellow windbreaker and ancient yellow helmet with bright yellow bandanna under it next to these two. I sort of hated them for no real reason except they looked too coordinated, too pretty, too grinny. Maybe it's because they looked like they were enjoying themselves but more likely it was 'pretty envy' on my part. Why do I have to be the dork here? Whatev.

My thighs were burning in that familiar way. I suspect one can get addicted to that. I'm not really pushing it since I'm riding under unfamiliar conditions coupled with the fact that I'm out of 'bike riding' shape. I'm bemused by that, it doesn't matter how much you workout at the gym nothing will get you in shape for riding a bike like actually riding a bike. Go figure.

That's not to say that I'm retiring from the gym here. This was a realization that when the season starts I better be setting my expectations lower and not think I can go out for a, ahem, quick 25 and not feel it. I'm going to have to work my way up to that century baby, I am considering doing a tempo workout on one of the indoors however, you know just hop on an upright bike and pedal for ninety minutes or so, just keep the legs moving.

So I make it home, wetter and more relaxed than when I left. I have to pay much more attention to the road when I'm out during winter. Is that a wet patch or ice? In this case it was too warm for ice. Potholes. Junk in the road (there seems to be more of it in the winter). I hop off the bike and immediately feel that weird body still in motion feeling you get sometimes coming off the treadmill. I consult with goFast about it and he tells me that it's normal, as you get in better shape your leg muscles collect more blood so if you stop the blood pools down in the legs for a bit.

Or I have a tumor.

I took a quick peep at the stats from the ride:

520 (my commuter): average 12.8mph 55 minutes
Madone (new bike): average 14.4mph 47 minutes

This was over the same route and admittedly I was pushing a bit harder on the Madone. Doing the century math of 100 miles - if I can maintain an average of 12.8mph then I'll complete the century in seven hours, forty eight minutes. If I can maintain an average of 14.4mph I'll complete the century in six hours fifty four minutes.

Either way, piece of cake.