Wednesday, January 30, 2013

the transition is complete

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but this weekend, I realized (or maybe confessed) that it did.

In the spring of 2007, I started bicycling to stay in shape, and I set a goal for myself.  I wanted to complete the local Bike MS ride that September - a two day 150 mile trip from St. Augustine to Daytona Beach and back.  I didn't know if I could do it, but I was damn sure going to try.  I had a road bike I bought in 1984 and rode back then.  The plan was to dust that baby off and go for it.

I bought the spandex clothes that made me look fatter than I thought I deserved to look, and pretty much fit in with the crowd.  I was all kinds of proud of myself for actually being able to ride in one of those lines of cyclists and kind of know what I was doing.

By May of that year, I was riding every weekend and decided I needed a new bike.  A few years later my son grew into that bike and I bought a newer bike.

All through that though, especially in the winters, I'd see people out riding when it was damn cold out.  They'd have special clothes for that and I'd think, "What flipping idiots!  It's cold out there.  Couldn't you find something else to do so you aren't freezing your ass off on a bike?  I'll never be one of THOSE fanatics."

Well, I bought the newer bike in April of 2010 and it's now getting close to its 9000th mile.  I'm not sure exactly where it is, but it's over 8800 miles.  It got over its 8800th mile this weekend, when it was 40-something degrees out and I was on my bike, being one of THOSE people.  I'm not sure when I became one of THOSE people, but riding up A1A from St. Augustine to Ponte Vedra Beach into a 20 mile an hour headwind in the cold in a line with other people I used to consider fanatics, it hit me.  I've definitely become one.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Smith said...

Love the story about bicyling,i will try that one day
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2:50 AM  

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