You Never Forget

That’s what they say: Once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget. Correcto!! Over the weekend a friend gave us two nice bikes. Boss Cruisers. Six speeds of thigh-tiring work.
This morning I took my test ride. You should understand that in the old days, read that when I was 14 or 15, a 20 mile ride, up and down hill on my heavy one speed Columbia, was no big deal. Later when I got my brother’s 3-speed, it was even easier. So anyway, this morning off I went, down the driveway, dogs barking and hackles up, out on the road (down hill) and flying. Whee! Suddenly I remembered a hiking truism: When the trail goes down, it will go up just as far. Same with bikes it turns out. The bottom of the hill came fast, downshift, peddle like mad to go up, panting, thighs burning, slow down, turn around, fly down, and then up into the driveway. Crikey!!! Semi out of breath, thighs belong to someone else, dogs snarling at me and the bike. What fun.
I can easily walk 5 miles, and we do walk 3.5 miles every Saturday and Sunday on the same road that just defeated me in, what, 1000 feet?
They say you never forget HOW to ride a bike and that is right, but your legs sure as hell forget how to peddle up hill for a mile, or even 100 feet. The next ride will be the St. Marks trail. Nice and flat. I figure a couple of trips on that will begin to get things back in shape. In the mean time I will try the 1000 foot challenge every day this week and maybe even later today. I’ll keep the cell phone on in case I have to call 911.

Image: http://www.students.stedwards.edu/mstewar4/mountainbiken.jpg