Well, as you all know, the Bike and Build adventure is done and finished. The trip, however, did not satiate my desire to do great things. Rather, the trip ignited it. In keeping with that theme, I've decided to keep writing in this blog about any and all bicycle related adventures. Hopefully someone will read this blog every so often; you need not be a bike and build alumni-but if you are, HI!- you're welcome to put in your two cents about what I have to say. But as I was saying, this blog will be devoted to my experiences on the saddle of a bike. I plan on always being a cyclist in one form or another, and hope to do many other long distance tours on a road bike. My next planned adventure is a ride from Boston to Provincetown this summer with some Bike and Builders and a few other friends who seem interested. However, the fall semester promises to offer up some new experiences in the immediate future.
I've decided to branch out a bit and try my hand at mountain biking this semester. Up until this point my experience has been limited to one ride at Fountainhead Park back home. It was, to say the least, one of the most challenging rides I've ever done. I distinctly remember the feeling of exhaustion after the ride, as well as the constant fear of eating dirt or breaking a bone during the ride. I'm told that the course is actually pretty challenging, but I'd still consider myself a novice when it comes to mountain cycling. I figured the best move for me to make would be to take a class on the subject, so that is exactly what I did. This morning I had my second day of mountain cycling class, a kinesiology course designed to "explore the holistic, spiritual, and physical benefits of mountain cycling". Or so says the syllabus.
This morning began at Shenandoah Bicycle Company, a cool little shop nestled between Dave's Taverna and an auto-body shop downtown. I've been a few times-one particularly memorable experience was buying my cycling shoes for the trip- and it was nice to finally be back inside a bike shop. It wasn't quite so nice biking through the rain a few miles to get there, but ehhh, I've seen worse. Funny now how bike shops give me those warm fuzzies now...ahhh consumerism. But anyway, we were there to learn a little basic maintanence for our bicycles and to make certain that they were in good working condition. I'd considered bringing Jonas to the shop, since I figured I didn't need to learn much about basic maintanence. After all, I already knew how to basically maintain my road bike. Plus, Jonas is frankly much faster than my mountainbike, who I've decided to name Rocky. Yeah, original huh?
Anyway, I'm very glad that I decided to bring Rocky in despite his slight slugishness as compared to his lighter, slimmer brother. As I found out today, mountainbike mechanics are just different enough from a road bike's to merit a little hands on learning. It's the little things you know, like the lack of Presta valves on my tires. I never knew how much I'd miss those skinny little things until I had to use my fingernails to slowly-and I mean SLOWLY- let the air out of my tires so I could check the tubes. Even the break release on my mountainbike is a little different than my roadbike.
I guess that those things should be different is obvious. They are, afterall, bikes designed to do different things. As much as I grudge Rocky's slowness a little, I have to admit he can take a beating on a trail way better than Jonas could. I'd be in real trouble if I tried bringing a road bike where I'm going. Still, after spending an entire summer doing routine maintanence on my bike and feeling like this maintanence class would be a snap, I found myself very frustrated that I couldn't change a mountain bike flat with the ease I could my road bike's. It really is all about habit building, and obviously I'm going to have to learn new habits to deal with the mountain bike.
Still, it was exciting also, especially seeing the people in the class that had never had any sort of experience maintaining their bikes suddenly get what they were trying to do. It was a nice reminder of my summer, where many of us began knowing almost nothing about our bikes and ended having a pretty intimate understanding of them. I can't wait to see where everyone is after this class! And of course, I can't wait to get out there and ride!
Peace out Hombres!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
yaaay, I'm glad you decided to keep up your blog! And that you're so excited about cycling still. My friends back home don't get it, they thought I'd be sick of it for a while, but really, the week my bike was in transit, I missed it.
Good luck MTB-ing, I look forward to reading about it.
Aww Mark I miss you too……….honey (ha!). But I’m glad you’re keeping up with bike stuff and that you’re branching off the road. The only thing I seem to be on is concrete and sadly not even my bike but with my running shoes. But for real come to Texas and then you can finally meet my parents! Oh and have fun this semester and getting back to the grind of the real world.
Post a Comment