My husband Ryan is a bike rider. Me…. not so much. BUT I decided that I would be supportive and join him since it was a nice day. He has all the gear….a helmet, special shorts, a clip-in shoe thingy, and teeny tiny tires. I was equipped with…..flip flops. We don’t even have a girl bike so I rode a dude bike with a seat that looked like Robin Hood’s hat.😫
I was feeling confident going down our hill but then as soon as we hit flat ground I was overwhelmed and confused by the millions of gear options!!!…. (what happened to “petal to go, pedal back to stop” bikes?) Apparently I did something wrong because I slipped the chain (that’s what Ryan called it) and I had to stop so he could fix it. Once I finally got the hang of things I started to enjoy myself. Ryan coached me: “push yourself, pedal to your next speed!”
Me huffing and puffing: “I only have one speed, this is it”. By this point my lungs were burning, my legs were burning…well, pretty much everything was burning. Jokingly I said, “I could probably go faster but the sun is in my eyes”. Ryan replied, “you should wear sunglasses next time because they protect you from bugs hitting your eyes”. In my mind I was thinking “blah, blah, blah…a bug is NOT going to hit me in the eye… the odds of that happening are like one in a million or something”.
Ryan took an extra hill and said he would “catch up” to me so I started pedaling REALLY FAST to prove I was quicker than he thought and to beat him home (I’m very competitive). Lance Armstrong had NOTHING on me as I flew along bluff road with the wind in my hair! All of the sudden, out of nowhere…a bug (possibly a small bird) hit me in the eye!!!! It hurt sooo bad! I was alone and I couldn’t get it out….(I just about flagged down a car to help me remove what felt like a locust swimming around) Even though I was blinded in one eye….when others would have given up, sat on the side of the road to cry, or called a taxi….I persevered!! The ONLY reason Ryan caught up was because I was wounded. I eventually made it to the bottom of our Mt Everest hill….looked up…there was no WAY I was riding up. I got off my bike as Ryan cruised on up (show off) and I walked it up with my limp noodle legs, burning lungs, sore butt bone,…. and one eye.
