Biking

I made no new year's resolution about biking. Sure, I had some vague plan to continue exercising, but there was no biking on my new year's resolution list.

On the 2nd day of January, my train stopped running. No train, for maintenance purposes, for more than two weeks. Buses were replacing trains. Expect the journey to take 75 minutes longer, said the transit authorities.

So I spent a long time looking at maps. If I rode my bike to the train line just to the north, I could take that train out to a stop near the university, then ride the bike the rest of the way from there. The map estimated about 20 minutes to get to that train line, 20 minutes on the train, then a 20 minute ride to work. That looked totally reasonable. And 40 minutes of biking would be good for me.

It turns out that I am separated from that next train line to the north by a huge gully. I had no idea. At the bottom of the gully is the freeway. There are very few ways to cross the freeway, but a handful of busy roads run past it. So there I was on my bike, riding along a very busy road to the bottom of a gully, to a freeway underpass, to a very steep and very long hill on the other side. The sun was beating down. The cars were zooming by. And I was in lowest gear, riding in the gutter, trying to get up that hill. It was miserable. Worst bike ride ever. And then, since it was a gully not a hill, I had to do a very similar trip in the afternoon in reverse.

The next day I started out on the bike resigned to do the same trip again. But glancing at my watch as I climbed the steep hill to get to the train station, I realised I had just missed the train, and the next one was in 20 minutes. So I decided to keep riding, slightly downhill to the next station. And that took less time than expected, so I rode to the next, and then I crested a hill to see the long bike-only trail that crosses from the central business district to the eastern suburbs. If I took that bike path rather than the 20 minute train, I would be off of all the busy roads. I would ride along the bottom of the gully, and I would pull off before it got too steep at the end. There would be trees and grass and streams, not trucks and asphalt and horns. So I took it. I rode the bike trail the whole way to work, aside from 15 minutes in the suburbs at the end. It took me about 90 minutes to bike to work that day, but there was no steep hill by the freeway with the traffic.

I took the weekend off from commuting. By Monday, I had decided I should just take the bike path from home -- skip all the steep hills. I packed soap and a towel and a change of clothes, and I left very early in the morning. After one hour and twenty minutes, plus shower time, I was there. It felt great. I even passed about a dozen elderly people riding for pleasure on the bike trail. I was fast. I was strong. I was going to do this thing and be in amazing shape before the train was back up and running.

On Tuesday, I got on the bike and ouch. Saddle sore. But again I packed the change of clothes. I rode to the bike trail. After about 15 minutes my saddle was numb. And after one hour and nineteen minutes I had arrived.

On Wednesday, I packed the change of clothes and got on the bike and ouch. Really saddle sore. And somehow, all those little hills along the bike path seemed a lot steeper this time. And although there wasn't that one steep hill at the end, this time I could feel all the little steep hills, and the overall accumulated rise in elevation.

And I started noticing that I didn't look like the other people on the trail. Those other people, they had bright yellow shirts and tight black pants. They carried small light packs, or even saddle bags. And they kept passing me. I could hear them pull up behind. I could hear their pedals stop as they waited while I wheezed my way up the little hill. And then as soon as they could, they whizzed off and disappeared up the trail.

Their bums didn't look sore -- were their seats more padded? They pedaled fast, too. I couldn't pedal like they did. Their bodies were machines that pedaled. Whereas me, I was a machine that pedaled a little, sweated a lot, wheezed, and wiggled around trying to adjust to the fact that there was a giant stick with a plastic seat-shaped-thing up my butt.

The ride on Wednesday was really bad. I kept thinking thought I'd go numb to the saddle-sore thing, like I did the day before. But I didn't. After the first hour on the bike, I tried to rotate my body so that the stick-up-the-butt was poking somewhere else. But there aren't many options for where that thing can poke. And I learned that it's better to leave it where it is than have it poke you in the sphincter. Just saying.

On Thursday ... I couldn't do it. I couldn't couldn't. I tried to talk myself into it, but my legs hurt from pedaling. My shoulders hurt from carrying my backpack. My wrists hurt from jostling on the handlebars. And I won't even talk about the awkward places that hurt from having a stick poked up them.

I took the bus. The bus only took about an hour and ten minutes. And I didn't have to shower at the other end.

On Friday, I took the bus.

Now that it is Saturday, my legs don't hurt. My arms don't hurt. My shoulders don't hurt. And those awkward places where the bike seat pokes -- they don't hurt either. Maybe I'll ride my bike on Monday.

Or maybe not. After all, it never really was a new year's resolution anyway.