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Health & Fitness

I Want to Ride My Bicycle... at the Woodbury Days Bike Ride

Patch's most average recreational cyclist tackles the 30 mile Woodbury Days bike ride.

Just a little less than 24 hours from now, I will be riding my first Woodbury Days Bike Ride.  

“Why is this news?” you ask. 

My response: “It really isn’t news, but this is a blog… I could write about making sweaters out of my belly button lint if I wanted to write about it.” 

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(Closed circuit to Kris Janisch—look for that one in mid October. It’s a riveting story thus far.) (Editor's note: Cool.)

Anyway….this is the first riding of the event I’ve done, and actually the first group ride I’ve done with anyone other than my daughter.  In past years, either the lack of a suitable bike or the filling of the calendar with other events has sabotaged this.  I almost missed this year after signing up because of a mechanical issue, but the good folks at Penn Cycle here in the `bury fixed the noble steed.

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I don’t ride with people often because most of the people I see on group rides are skinny and bespandexed and whizzing by me at twice my speed.  They’ve always been very nice to me, but I’m not sure how much they want to wait at the top of the hill for the pudgy guy who wears the spandex under regular shorts and keeps his bike safely in the 10-20 mph range.

Define pudgy?  Imagine typical recreational cyclist legs, scrawny arms, and abs of Homer Simpson and you’ve pretty much described me

But, enough about me, let’s talk more about….uh, me?

I don’t know an awful lot about the course.  I’ve seen past event courses for the 30 mile and the parts that I’ve ridden have been somewhat hilly. 

Hills aren’t a huge problem.  I don’t climb them like Armstrong or Contador, but I have climbed some of the more difficult ones in the area.  Again, not Tour de France mountains, but enough to teach me how to stay within myself, find the appropriate gear, and just slog evenly up the incline.

Unless, of course, you’ve got a mechanical issue…such as the gear that you use for the hill climbing slog being warped.  Understand, it wasn’t warped to the point where it wouldn’t turn, but warped enough that it was a crapshoot whether the chain would go onto the sprockets or whether you would suddenly find yourself spinning the wheels real fast and going nowhere with the chain off.

On the flats, this isn’t a problem.  Hop off the bike, put the chain back on, lift the wheel, spin the cranks with the hand to make sure, and you’re off.  Estimated time:  30 seconds, tops.  On a hill, it’s about the same amount of time, but you’ve lost your momentum, so the hill suddenly feels steeper.

But, as I mentioned earlier, the good folks at Penn Cycle took care of this. (No, this is not a paid endorsement…if they were looking for a paid endorser, they’d get someone who looked and rode a LOT better than your humble scribe.)

All-in-all, it should be interesting.  I don’t forsee finishing as a problem.  I’ve done plenty of solo rides in the 20-40 mile range, and as long as I don’t crash into someone, I should be fine.   Of course, those are famous last words…

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