Last Saturday I had a GREAT ride, and I'm not generally the sort of person who expresses excitement in all caps. I got up around 6:15 anticipating a rather long car ride up to Malibu Bluffs Park, but taking the highway cut down my commute considerably. I was the second person to arrive, just after Head Coach Ramone around 7:15. He and some of the other bikers helped me out adjusting my bike to ride more comfortably.
The weather was chilly and threatening to rain, though not a single person seemed fazed by the possibility of inclement weather. Coach Dave reminded us that a couple of years ago the Solvang Century occurred in rain, sleet and high winds, so we had better get used to riding in all sorts of conditions!
This was our first meeting of both the East and West side teams. I really enjoyed meeting all of the new people. The coaches and mentors are all fun and helpful biking enthusiasts, full of great stories and advice.
We biked into a cloudy and wet day, but it cleared up as the morning wore on. By mile 16 we had the sunshine and clear skies that Malibu is known for, but also the sometimes bracing winds.
The first few hills that we encountered were very challenging. I was determined not to stop so early in the day, but man I am not used to biking uphill! Luckily, the whole ride was going up and down hills with nary a flat in site, so I had almost 40 miles of practice by lunchtime. In the same way that I am not used to the physical and mental effort of climbing hills, I am not used to the invigorating, and at times terrifying, effortless downhill acceleration. At one point I went by a speed monitoring sign that clocked me in at 24 mph and increasing. While fun, I was apprehensively conscious of only my helmet and my clothes protecting me from the pavement.
We had a few technical problems during the ride. Coach Ramone barely made it out of the park before experiencing the first of two flats. Later on in my pace group Brad's chain fell off during a steep uphill climb. A few miles later Kira had a flat in her back tire. Luckily east side coach Sheldon and mentor Linda were there to help out. I enjoyed the mini break and the refresher on how to fix a flat. I'm pretty sure that I could do it on my own, but the girls like to joke around about how you can just let your hair down and wait for the next guy to bike past. Bikers are generally a friendly lot anyway, and rarely will they bike by a someone in trouble, especially a 'damsel in distress.'
Around mile 16 we stopped by Neptune's Net to use the restrooms. Neptune's is a pretty famous seafood shack and biker (as in Harley, not Schwinn) hangout. I've been a few times for their excellent and gigantic plates of fried seafood. I was pleased to see that they were decked out for the holidays. The last four miles after that were probably the toughest of the ride. However, I knew that Marylin, who was manning the SAG (support and gear) stop up ahead, had a whole box of Nutter Butter cookies, so I used that as motivation to keep pedaling.
The ride back was exhilarating. I had the wind at my back, my muscles were warmed up and I had a pretty good feel for how to shift my gears to handle the hills. I was also adjusting to the momentum of riding down hills, and learning how to use that speed to my advantage in order to make going up the next hill much easier. There were a couple of hills near the end were I was almost sure I wouldn't make it to the top. Even now I'm sort of amazed at myself. I developed a few strategies that seemed to help. One, I avoided looking at the top of the hill. I found that if I had no idea how much further I had to go it was much easier to trick myself into believing that it was "just a little bit further," even if I had to blatantly lie to myself. I also found that counting up to 12 over and over again helped me concentrate but narrowing down my effort to just those 12 counts. In the end I made an agreement to myself to make it half way up, and then if I needed to I could stop. And then when I made it that far it seemed silly not to just keep going to the top.
I rolled back into Malibu Bluffs Park with a big smile on my face, and though I was pretty sore I also felt wonderful. We had a team potluck, with food generously provided by the coaches and mentors. I made myself a cheese and mustard sandwich (one of my staples when I first became a vegetarian) and I could not imagine a tastier post ride treat, topped off with some mini brownies and half of a muffin.
Next week I will be out of town for the holidays!
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