Girls ride

A friend sent me an email late Sunday evening from a yahoogroup. Ok, first I thought it was odd because he sent this from PurpleRides, group about women cycling. I'm still not sure why he joined this group, but I have to say that I'm glad he did and that he shared the information with me.

A younger cyclist has put together a ride for Monday evenings for women. She's planning to group people based on ability and interest/goals. About a dozen women showed for the "Meet and greet". Not everyone brought their bikes with them and so we only had about 8 that rode. We did a couple of small loops around the soccer fields and tennis courts, then rode 2 loops around Seneca and Cherokee parks. It was a lot of fun getting to know some new women that enjoy riding. I need to learn to ride with groups. Having spent most of my riding by myself it is nice to have someone to talk and ride with. Niki complimented me on not being too shy to get close to other cyclists. She said that we should be comfortable enough to place our hand on another's shoulder, arms stretched. Yeah, I like my hands on the bars still, but have no problem nudging in behind or riding in two's.

I think the most difficult part for me was riding the hills while starting behind others. Maybe I've developed bad habits, or just have a different way and need to learn a new method. I prefer to get a nice cadence going in a good gear before hitting the hill. It's easier for me to maintain a good cadence in this way. If I start out slow, I just go that much slower the further up the hill I go, making it more and more difficult to get to the crest. A lot of this is stamina and maybe I need to do some weight training for my legs.

We finished the first lap around both parks and decided to continue on and do a second. The temps were in the low 40s and I started out worrying about the cool weather. But standing outside waiting for everyone meet and then chatting for a short while, I think this helped my lungs acclimate to the cooler temps. My lungs had no wheezing issues during the ride. This is not to say that I didn't have times where I was breathing fairly heavily. I was! especially on those hills. I pulled another DUH Sherri. We were coming up to a stop sign and I only unclipped one shoe. Lost my balance and went Kerplunk on my left side. Buggered my knee up very nicely. :-) Oh well, I'm sure this will be very small compared to other injuries I manage to have in the future.

Next week plans are to ride to Iroquois from Cycler's Cafe. Should be about 2 hours worth of riding, What better way to spend a Monday evening?