A Wonderful Day - 2nd Ride

Had a wonderful day. Church this morning. A birthday party at our house (for me - I turned 43 on the 25th)  and after we said good-bye to our last guest, a quick bike ride around the neighborhood. Days don't get much better that this.

For my second ride on my new bike, I put on all of my cold-weather riding gear, I think cyclists refer to this as their "kit" but I'm not 100% sure about that. Whatever all of my stuff is called, I'm glad I have it and I could use a few more things to make sure I'm comfortable riding in cooler weather. I rode around 7:00 tonight with a temperature of about 43 degrees. I had on my shorts, my long biking pants which are kind of fleecy inside, my Marmot long-sleeved undershirt, a short-sleeved jersey, my windbreaker, helmet and fingerless gloves. I was not warm though I probably would have been okay if I went on a longer ride. What I still need is probably a skull cap sort of thing for under my helmet and/or something to cover my ears, possibly shoe covers and fingered gloves. That's not that much more stuff. I'm glad I've got almost everything I need to ride in this weather.

Lots of good news about my ride today:  First, I clipped in and out of my pedals easily and didn't fall down. Yay! A second and very noticeable good thing - my bike is FAST!! As in YEE HAW fast, way faster than my hybrid. Like all road bikes, my Giant Avail is built for speed. I was going 17 mph with little effort, over 10 mph up gentle hills. This may not sound wonderful to people who road bike regularly but it's hugely exciting when I've been working hard to average 10 mph on my hybrid and am going so much faster without any training or much effort. Another good thing about the ride is that I was more comfortable overall -  more comfortable with shifting, with my lower down position and with riding with my hands on the "hoods" and experimenting with using the  "drops." My shoes are also surprisingly comfortable (I didn't expect this - it's a struggle for me to find shoes that feel good). All in all, we rode about 5 miles. Averaged a mere 10 mph but were riding with the kids for part of the time so purposely went very slow, around 6 mph.

Oh yes, one more really important thing, I had FUN!

The birthday party was great fun as well. We had a bunch of people over, grown-ups and kids, this afternoon and had lots of good food. I baked a lot of stuff for the party because I love to bake, an herb cheesecake, a chocolate cake, some little sandwich pastry things and several people brought yummy things to share as well. I expected to have fun but the time was made even better when my neighbor, Craig, known as Mr. Kite, came over with some of his kites. He flew them out in our yard with the kids. Everyone had fun! Thanks to everyone who came and helped me celebrate. I love having friends, especially friends who don't mind if I try new recipes on them :-)


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