Merrily we roll along

So I was on a roll yesterday.

I had gotten to the store, found a bike helmet that I liked and seemed to fit well. Waited in line to check out and realized that my wallet was still in my back pack. My back pack was currently sitting in my front hall. So I politely asked the young man at the register to hold my items and that I would be back. Maybe after finding out that swim lessons had been cancelled, I should have just gone back to bed.

I treked home, grabbed my wallet, and treked back. I now had a helmet.

And no, for those of you who know me, the helmet is not red. Though now that I think about it, maybe I should have bought a red one. They say that red cars get pulled over for speeding more often, so apparently red = speed. I really could use all of the help that I could get.

I proudly announced to my husband that we are going to go for a bike ride on Sunday. He loves to ride, doing so most work days when the weather permits. He completed his first RAGBRAI this past summer. All I've ever needed to do was tell him when.

"We can go in the morning before the chimney guys get here," was his reply.

"But it's supposed to get down to the 40s tonight." I refrained (I hope) from whining.

"So?"

The whole goal was to push myself outside of my comfort zone, so I agreed.

This morning I climbed out of bed, ate my banana and drank a bit of my coffee. I sized my bike helmet according the manual that came with it. (Whoever thought you'd need a manual for something you wear on your head?!?)

My husband was waiting with both bikes out in the garage. He had his helmet on and was standing next to his bike.

"Aren't we going to drive to the path?" I asked.

"Why would we do that?"

"Because I'm not quite ready to trying conquering hills just yet."

"It's mostly flat. The only real hill is the one back up to the house."

Let me tell you about the hill back up to our house.

In the winter, when it's been icy and snowy for weeks on end, I have to make sure that I have enough speed going in order for my car to climb the hill. There were several instances this past winter where I turned onto the hill from another street half way up and ended up having to reverse back down to the bottom so I could make it home.

This was the hill I was trying to avoid.

There was no arguing. It was pointless, because I wasn't going to win.

"Fine, let's go," I said with a sigh.

I went to climb onto the bike when I realized that there were no pedals. Kind of a problem for riding. I started to feel that maybe I wasn't meant to do this after all. After a five minute search of the garage though, pedals were found and we were off.

As we pedaled toward downtown and the bike path, I played with the gears, trying to figure out which lever did what. About 3/4 of the way to the path I realized, with horror, that I hadn't really been pedaling much and were only 2/3s of the way through the route. That means lots of climbing on the return trip. Just what I had been trying to avoid.

We made it to the path and did a loop around Cedar Lake. Someone had known that I was coming apparently and had spray painted encouragement on the path: "2 miles/Hooray!" and "Finish Line". Okay, so it's probably left over from a 5k run or something, but I'm going to believe that someone was cheering me on.

The trip home felt shorter, though I wanted to cry as we hit every single stop light on the empty road home. The long hill up Grand Avenue ate at me. As much as I tried not to, I had to stop about half way up. I had walked this hill many times and it never seemed bad. On a bike, it felt like a beast. How was I going to make it back up the hill to my house?

We stopped for a minute and then continued on. My husband encouraging all along the way. Once it leveled out, it was only a short distance through the park and then to the beast.

I had failed the hill a few months ago after a shorter ride than the one that we had just taken. I didn't know if I could do it. But we looped the parking lot of the park for a few minutes and discussed strategy. I knew the gears better and was way more determined this time.

We hit the hill and I began downshifting. A quarter of the way up it and I maxed out. It was as easy as it was going to get. I looked towards the top and saw how far I had to go and started to panic. Pete talked me through it. I stopped looking towards the end and kept my focus on what was immediately in front of me.

Suddenly the pedals began to spin.

I had reached the top.