| alphabassettgrrl |
10-15-2007 12:48 AM |
So this morning (on three hours of sleep) I rode 7 miles of mountain biking. It was the "Fat Tire Festival" fundraiser for a local bike group, and one of the things was a "poker ride". You go along the course, stop at five of the possible eight stations, pick a card, and they stamp your collection card with what it is. Best hand wins a bike. Hubby packed all the bike stuff in the car, loaded the bikes, and let me sleep just a few more minutes. He set up the car so I could sleep on the drive there, too.
I did the 4.5 mile course, with a little extra detour up to follow Shawn through the creek of doom. With the zillions of people, my lack of sleep, and the slippery conditions through what they alternately call the Rock Garden, I decided today would not be a good day to try it. So I waited for him at the start of the bad part. He had gone up the creek to get to a different poker station, and get a longer more technical ride. He wasn't sleep deprived and he does better on the CoD.
He got lost and missed the turn to the poker station, and would up going most of the way up a 3 mile climb to a different (unintended) poker station. He was kind of thinking in retrospect that he should have just finished the hill, hit that station, and called it good. Instead, he went down the massive hill, hit the station he meant to hit, and came back to where we were planning to meet. He called my cell, but with the poor reception we couldnt' hear each other. There was enough to text, though, which helped. I thought he was taking a long time, and then he texted me that he had gotten lost. Turns out someone was likely standing in front of the sign at the turn-off, so he missed it.
Found him, we rode to our last poker station, and got all our cards. Didn't win anything; really bad poker hands. But we got back in time for lunch, and beer was included. Very nice. I had a Mothership Wit (wheat beer) and a Fat Tire Ale. Good stuff. Then I test-rode a couple of suspension bikes. I don't like full-suspension bikes and I don't like the rep lecturing me how I need to have the seat at the height of my head in order to ride properly. When I want to be able to touch the ground while sitting on the seat, if they look at me like I just grew a second head, I don't want to talk to them anymore. But I did find two bikes I like. One is front-suspension only, a Trek 69er. The front wheel is 29 inches and the back is 26 inches. Handled well. The other one I liked is the Safire from Specialized.
Expensive, so I don't know that I'll get either of them. But I verified that I really really don't want a full suspension bike and I feel like I wasted the time it took to sit on it. I knew I didn't want one. But hubby is never convinced until I waste the time to "just try it".
Lots of things I've never done but feel pretty confident I wouldn't like. I knew I wasn't going to like the full suspension. I know what I like. And what I don't. The full suspension makes me feel very insecure and it's not gonna happen. Plus I have to have the seat too freaking high and it makes me nervous and if I'm nervous about my bike I will not ride it.
Rant over. It's late. I'm tired. I worked tonight so I'm tired and wired. Shawn took pretty good care of me today, aside from pushing too hard for me to try a bike I know I won't like.
On the bright side, when we got home from the bike thing hubby took care of the dogs, fed them, changed the dog's diaper, and generally let me take a good nap. I may whine sometimes but on the whole he's a good guy.
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