Click on the cartoon above to see the full sized version.
Well this week’s episode took a lot more effort than I’d anticipated, much like the ride Mary took me on last week.
Mary and Patricia are the two who got me into cycling this summer, with Patricia donating an old bike of hers to me, and Mary coaching me along. I’ve been riding around my neighborhood all summer, slowly going from 4 miles up to 22 miles in a single ride (and let me tell ya, 22 miles is a lot of laps around my neighborhood). Anyway, Mary decided it was high time for me to hit the road outside my neighborhood, so she took me to historic Yorktown and we road the tour roads there. Our first ride out, we did 15 miles, which was a bit tough considering there are a lot of hills in Yorktown. But the second ride….
Oh, that second ride. Mary needed to put in some extra mileage last Wednesday, so she suggested we go 25 miles, and I agreed. And you can see the results above. Now, I am no slacker in the exercise department, you know this. But I am not as experienced a cyclist as Mary is, nor do I have a road bike, like she does. My bike is heavier, and a bit slower as a result. So whilst Mary zipped along, I trudged behind, desperately trying to keep up. We managed to do the first 15 miles in an hour, but then took another hour to do the last ten. Mary was kind enough to slow down for me, otherwise I would have gotten completely lost and probably died out there.
But as Mary pointed out, when it was over, it was over, and it felt really great to say, “Hey, I just biked 25 miles!! What did you do today, bitches?!” I like being able to do that.
And as for getting this week’s cartoon done, let me simply say that nothing is ever as easy as it looks. Especially when you want to get the joke just right.
Indeed. 🙂
This is one of the reasons I got the rode bike. It made a big difference in my ability to ride fast, longer and with dealing with hills. I still can’t keep up with the better rider’s, but they don’t wait as long for me to reach the rest points.