sam and the city

Its a long road back

Good day faithful readers. This week, after talking about it for months, I finally got around to buying myself a bike (and some new cycling shoes - hence the picture). Nothing special, just something to ride to and from work on, and something that will allow me to do a little bit of preparation for when I buy myself a 'good' bike and start doing some serious kilometers in readiness for going to watch to Tour de France next year.

The last time that I'd ridden a bike prior to riding my new purchase home from the bike shop was when I rode approximately 250km while completing the Around the Bay in a Day, nearly 12months to the day. Even though I'd only trained for a month for that particular event, the contrast between then and now is quite stark. Then I was fit, strong, fast... now I'm fit (thanks to my running), but as for strong and fast, sadly I'm anything but.

By the end of the 5km ride from the bike shop to my house, the last km or so being up what should be a mere bump of a hill, my legs were feeling something like I remember them feeling at the end of 250km I had ridden the last time I was on a bike. It was a sad state of affairs.

Saturday I decided that I should go out for my first proper ride to truly assess what state I was in. Although I'd been given several +80km routes to check out, based on the previous night's performance, I thought that I would take the safe option and do a few laps around Richmond Park instead, not wanting to find myself 50km from home with thigh muscles in total melt down. I think that it was quite lucky I did this too. I rode for about an hour and a half, and by the time that I got home my legs had definitely had enough of hill climbing for the day.

The embarrassing this is, these 'hills' that I refer to I wouldn't normally even make reference to. They're hardly Alpe d'Huez. Those of you not coming from Adelaide won't understand this, but these hills wouldn't have even got you to the base of Norton Summit let alone onto the 7km climb proper!

Nevertheless, I made it around, and now I still have another nine months to prepare for when I really do get to climb Alpe d'Huez!

posted by sam @ 8:02 pm