Yesterday I went out for my bike ride! I said I would do it, and I did it! And Woow, what an amazing excruciating pain I'm feeling in my legs!
I rode with 3 other guys. One older gentleman, around 60 that had experience riding, and two guys my age that have been increasing their ride time for a few weeks now. They are more used to riding than I am. Not only that, but they also bought new bikes...
We rode on the roads, I had to rent a bike to go but the store only had mountain bikes, which are not great for the road, my friend's new bikes are gravel bikes, which are better for the road than mountain bikes.
I was at a clear disadvantage! I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep up with them, especially since I outweight them by like 80 pounds, and that was clear from the start. After the first 30 minutes, they were already much much further ahead than I was! After 1 hour of riding, I had to hop out of the bike and walk for a bit, my legs had this huge pump!
I'm not used to riding, I'm more used to powerlifting/bodybuilding, that's my sport, where I'm great at, and almost nobody can keep up with me, squatting 440 pounds for reps, easy! Cycling for hours? Oh god help me! But hey, I always like a new challenge! And I definitely need the cardio that cycling provides...
Especially since I'm a software engineer who doesn't move around much during the day, and at night, even though I try to get 10k steps in, I mostly do weight training.
It didn't help at all that the first dozen miles were inclined upwards with almost no drops where I could rest... I kept asking my friends "How many more climbs are left until we start going down?" and it was always "Just 2 more", I asked him like a dozen times! It was 2 more 4 climbs ago!
Also, it was raining! We had this huge drop where I think my bike reached 60Km/h, where I almost couldn't open my eyes because the rain didn't allow me to... I was actually scared that some hole in the road would make me fall down, and THERE WAS A HOLE! Thankfully I was able to move a little to the right before I went over it... If I didn't I'm not sure what would have happened to me. Probably would be here writing this with no teeth...
I think the worst mistake I did was that I didn't take any water with me... I wanted to take water, but I had no bottle that fit the bike that the store rented me... All the bottles I had were too big for my bike!
Thankfully one of my friends had two bottles and he gave me some water mid-ride...
Even with all these challenges and mistakes... I did it! 1:30h of moving time, 32.8Km (20 miles), at an average speed of around 21Km/h!
I wasn't able to take any photos, not only because I didn't want to take my phone out of my pocket since It was raining, but also because my friends kept pushing me to not take much time during the few breaks we took!
I really need to get myself a gravel bike like they have if I'm going to keep going with them. It looks great, it makes the ride easier, and at least, hopefully, I can sort of keep up with them... But they are so expensive!
The cheapest one I've seen is $1300, the ones my friends have were $1600 and $2200... the helmet, which is one of the most important parts of the whole sport, "Better have it and not need it, then need it and not have it", costs minimum $100! I then need some pants, one of those that make the ass look huge, also need gloves, and a light for the bike, and a GPS to know where I'm at, and a tubeless kit for the wheels, and ,and , AND... It's such an expensive sport!
These are my friend's bike:
I'm aiming to get one next year, it's not on my list of priorities. Right now I'm more focused on investing! There are some good opportunities, both in crypto and in the stock market, but I'll try to save up a few bucks a month to get a gravel bike next year...
My friends are messaging me right now... they want to go on a 80Km (50 Miles) ride! These guys are mad, I almost didn't survive this one, I can't really do 80Km, at least not yet...
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