Bikes

I have always loved riding my bike. When I was a kid my parents bought me a Western Flyer with a big banana seat and one speed. That bike was sweet! On one occasion, we had every kid in the neighborhood take part in a mass start race from one end of our street to the other. It was my good fortune to make an early move that worked and Brian Oddy and I were off to the 1-2 finish. When we were clear we looked back and the entire field went down in a massive pile-up. Just as we were sneaking a peak, my brother, I kid you not, rode over the pile of boys and bikes!! It is true! He didn't go down but simply rode over the pile like it was a hill. At the bottom of the pile lay Brian Owens whose family had moved to our city from Kentucky. He didn't believe in wearing shirts, shoes or socks. Helmets weren't even invented yet. Brian Oddy and I rode back after our sprint to witness Brian Owens' older brother tearing bikes away from the pile and pulled out his bloody little brother from the choicest spot. It was a sorry sight but he was okay. Some road rash here and there along with a bruise or two.

My family moved to Grosse Ile when I was entering 5th grade. We moved to a street that was a short dead end and unpaved. In our old neighborhood, we had kids everywhere but not so in the new digs. Instead of big mass start races, I turned to touring and bike jumping. I jumped everything I could. We had ditches so that was a natural choice. It was tough because you had to use a driveway to get enough speed up to make it. Directly across the street from us was a house with a concrete wall on the house side of the ditch. Eventually, I summoned up the courage to make an attempt. Grosse Ile was nice for riding around. I remember loading up an army backpack with a bag of potato chips and riding from my house to the airport at the end of the island.

As I became a teenager, the Western Flyer was replaced by an oversized Schwinn 10 speed. It was way too big for me but I loved it all the same. I rode it everywhere. It was my car. My friends and I would venture off the island and ride to Dearborn or Metro airport. Crazy. My parents didn't have a clue where I was.

Once I got my drivers license bikes moved to the back burner. It wasn't until I went to work for Ford that I had opportunity to rent bikes in cool cities and tear around checking things out. I rented a bike in Seattle and rode everywhere. I took a ferry to Bainbridge Island and rode all over. On another trip, I rode from Washington National Airport to Mt. Vernon and back.

My wife bought me a comfort bike when I as in my late 30's. I had about 1800 miles on that bike when she bought me my first road bike a Trek 2200. That bike served me well until I broke the chain, ripped the rear deraillure off and cracked the drop-out. I'll never forget how bad it felt to not have a bike. It was a month or so when I was trying to get some love from Trek and trying to convince my wife that I should get a new bike. She gave me her blessing eventually and I bought a Litespeed Solano which became my first race bike.

These are thoughts that were going through my head today as I put in 70 miles at Kensington. The first 50 miles were so much fun. Temperature was right where I like it. Warm to hot and humid. I felt terrific and the miles were just melting away. My goal was to ride hard to prepare for Maillot Juane road race. Last year I cramped on that course so I wanted to do some training on similar terrain. From mile 50 to mile 70 the fun evaporated and it became a suffer-fest. On the last climb of the last lap I cramped! Talk about great timing. It was a good one too. My right hammy and quad went simultaneously. My normalized power was 262 watts over three hours and twenty five minutes giving me an average of 20.3 mph. The park road that goes by the neutral zone is all blocked off so I rode the course to the round-about, turned around and re-joined the course. It took 13 laps to get to 69 miles so it was 13 times up Snot Hill. I hate that thing. It is by far the worst that course has to offer. If anyone wants to join me week after next let me know. Except for rest weeks, I plan on doing this mileage or more every week between now and MJ.