Becoming A Real Cyclist

Image by magical-world via Flickr

By: Jeff

For the last couple of weeks I have been riding my from home to work a couple of times during the week.  I do two different routes to mix it up, and to deal with the one road becoming busier in the afternoon.  On the way in to work the route is 7.2 miles.  The route that I have been taking home is 11.5 miles.  This has been great and I have enjoyed these routes very much.  Then last Friday the winds began to blow.  In the afternoon it picked up to 16mph with gusts over 20mph.  NICE!!!  My wife called me and graciously offered to pick me up.  This, was very tempting.  I knew it would be a challenging ride, as the first 4 or 5 miles would be directly into the wind. I even thought about shortening the ride home to the 7.2 mile route.  But that is when it happened.  I told my wife, thanks, but no thanks.  11.5 miles, wind, bring it!!!

So as expected the first 4 or 5 miles were brutal.  Even downhills that I normally get good speed on were challenging.  The wind gusting across the barren cornfields were tough.  I just kept telling my self, "just keep pedaling".  And I did.  At about the 5 mile mark my route turned 90 degrees from the wind, a little relief.  In a few more miles my route turned to where the wind was at my back, AWESOME!!!  All total it only took me a few more minutes to get home then it normally does.  Average speed was down by a couple MPH. But, it was worth it.  Great work out, and mentally rewarding.  To be a real cyclist you can't just pedal on the easy days, you have to pedal on any given day. Wind or no wind.