Thursday, August 23, 2012

Thirteen demanding miles, Seven with Kevin

Decent night’s sleep, not feeling nearly as washed out. Awoke unexpectedly stiff, but stretched twice before noon, and it helped a lot.

In afternoon, rode down to meet Kevin at Grass Valley – about six miles from here – and then followed him home, for another 7.1 miles. Very demanding, in terms of anxiety and stamina.

Anxiety in that Kevin rides on sidewalks, a lot, and crosses a lot of roads, and follows trails through parks that are often narrow with tight twists in them. Several times we passed pedestrians, whose safety I feared for because of my unsteadiness. I was constantly on guard lest I hit something or someone, or get caught in traffic as we crossed a road. He was very considerate, but there’s such a gap in our abilities…

Stamina in that we had half a dozen steep hills – steeper than what I’m used to. None of them were very long, and I got to the top of all but one, and would have gotten to the top of that one except that my gears unexpectedly jammed as I was down-shifting.

When we got to Kevin’s house I got a shower and then we sat around for two or three hours visiting and eating supper. I think this gave me time to stiffen up. Anyway, he put my bike on his car and brought me home, and when we got here I was quite stiff.



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