Sunday, August 31, 2008
The Greatest Challenge of the ride for me
The statistics for Friday's ride through the Pennsylvania and New Jersey should have told the story ahead of time but there is no way to comprehend how difficult that ride would be for me. Very early in the day already there were steep hills. I overheard someone say that one particular hill was a 14% grade. I found that I could get into my lowest gear and keep moving slowly but the longer the hill continued the shorter my breath would get and I didn't dare to push my heart and aching muscles any further. If I sensed that I was near the top I would get off my bike and walk the rest of the way up that hill. Or if the hill was never ending I would ride for a short time and rest and ride again or walk for short distances and ride again. But even the walking was difficult because of my biking shoes with their steel cleats on the bottom of the ball of the foot.
I also began to develop problems with my chain shifting mechanism and the chain came off three different times. It is very tricky to click out of your pedals when your pedals are unattached to your chain. The third time it happened I was starting up a steep hill and fell to the right side and into a rocky drainage area. My forward motion was zero because of the hill and and I was able to put my hands out to the right side and cushion my fall with my padded biking gloves. Thank You, God for protecting me.
A short time later some other SeatoSea bikers came along and one of them had the technical skills to fine tune the shifting mechanism so the chain would shift properly and not come off. One of the riders who was about my age and biking level offered to ride with me and so we went on together, hill after hill. It was getting late in the day and we had just entered New Jersey and we had one more mountain ridge to cross. But was a steep and continuous climb. It had gradual curves in the road and just when you thought you were getting near the top you rounded a curve and upward the road continued. There was no place where the climb lessened and you could relax your muscles for a bit. After many stops and some walking we made it to the top, which was called "High Point." What a relief! By now we were getting very hungry and thirsty. The ride down was more than a breeze, it was a wind tunnel of air movement which ripped at your face and dried your eyes and caused them to tear up. I don't know if it was that hill or one of the others that day when I reached a maximum speed of 44 miles and hour. That evening someone told me that the climb was 4 miles long--I said "no-way, it was more like 14 miles."
Looking back on that day I cannot imagine that I would be able to complete those 84 miles. It surprised me that I did not have sore muscles at the end of the day. My body was very tired but my spirit was enriched. Part of the day when I was riding through beautiful scenery and it was so quiet that you could hear almost any sound in the woods I had time to listen to the calls of individual birds. We live in a country of incredible beauty and variety of terain.
I thank God for such a flexible body that is able to cope with physical, mental and emotional challenges beyond our imagining.
I also began to develop problems with my chain shifting mechanism and the chain came off three different times. It is very tricky to click out of your pedals when your pedals are unattached to your chain. The third time it happened I was starting up a steep hill and fell to the right side and into a rocky drainage area. My forward motion was zero because of the hill and and I was able to put my hands out to the right side and cushion my fall with my padded biking gloves. Thank You, God for protecting me.
A short time later some other SeatoSea bikers came along and one of them had the technical skills to fine tune the shifting mechanism so the chain would shift properly and not come off. One of the riders who was about my age and biking level offered to ride with me and so we went on together, hill after hill. It was getting late in the day and we had just entered New Jersey and we had one more mountain ridge to cross. But was a steep and continuous climb. It had gradual curves in the road and just when you thought you were getting near the top you rounded a curve and upward the road continued. There was no place where the climb lessened and you could relax your muscles for a bit. After many stops and some walking we made it to the top, which was called "High Point." What a relief! By now we were getting very hungry and thirsty. The ride down was more than a breeze, it was a wind tunnel of air movement which ripped at your face and dried your eyes and caused them to tear up. I don't know if it was that hill or one of the others that day when I reached a maximum speed of 44 miles and hour. That evening someone told me that the climb was 4 miles long--I said "no-way, it was more like 14 miles."
Looking back on that day I cannot imagine that I would be able to complete those 84 miles. It surprised me that I did not have sore muscles at the end of the day. My body was very tired but my spirit was enriched. Part of the day when I was riding through beautiful scenery and it was so quiet that you could hear almost any sound in the woods I had time to listen to the calls of individual birds. We live in a country of incredible beauty and variety of terain.
I thank God for such a flexible body that is able to cope with physical, mental and emotional challenges beyond our imagining.
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