For the first time in about a thousand years I rode a bike. Jeff and I had been planning on doing this for awhile and after Jeff grabbed me a helmet a couple days ago, we made our plans. Naturally the weather was brilliant all week up until our bike day. As we started out there was a low mist hanging in the air, brimming with the promise of rain. Fortunately the rain was light and only persisted for a portion of the ride. Still, lacking the titular windshield wipers for my glasses, visibility was not quite what I hoped.
We rode the 7-11 Trail, which despite the name does not feature any 7-11s, Slurpees or Big Gulps. This trail runs parallel to the Expo SkyTrain line and we took the train to Patterson, riding back through Burnaby and New Westminster. The vital stats were as follows:
Total distance: 15.76 km
Total time: 1:04 hours
Average speed: 14.8 km/h
Highest speed: 32.4 km/h
Much like my old bike ride home from John Sherman Agencies, the toughest part of the trip (a good portion of which is downhill when going from west to east) was the last few blocks before getting back. I am happy to report that even with my out-of-shapeness I was able to peddle up each hill without stopping. This was made even more impressive because of my natural tendency to shift gears down when I meant to shift up and vice-versa. I’ll get the hang of it eventually.
The bike I’m using belongs to a friend and co-worker of Jeff and it’s significantly lighter than my bike was. It also has actual suspension so when I ride it over a curb it doesn’t feel like it’s going to fly apart. The kooky racing-style gear changers (incorporated into the brakes) took a bit to get used to and there was one instance where I slammed on the brakes when I enthusiastically attempted and failed to switch gears. I remained on the bike and not over the handlebars, though, so hooray for me!
While I feel fine now, I did note all of the muscles that were burning during the ride and anticipate glorious stiffness come the morning. Still, I didn’t crash, the weather was not as bad as it could have been and I finally got a little exercise, so I consider it a successful first outing.
