sweat and tyres en route to blt bribery
Ah, those late January doldrums. If it wasn’t for the impetus of this weekly confessional, I may well have avoided my bike entirely. The next challenge: ramping up the mileage.
I settled upon bribery as a solution. If I could ride all the way to Twofish Bakery, I would treat myself to a BLT for lunch. And so, with the siren calls of pork spurring me southwards I set off. When I arrived, nearly an hour later, I spotted a swarm of other cyclists. Panic mode: what if they had the same idea? What if the BLTs were sold-out by the time I got to the cashier? Would I be able to settle for an Italian instead?
Mercifully, they seemed more interested in purchasing potato chips (a strange choice when you’ve biked to the best bakery this side of San Francisco). I heard one of them, a grizzled 60something chap, mention he rides 60 miles a day. In spite of this dealing a body blow to my (already extremely shaky) cycling self-esteem, I refrained from slashing the tyres of his fancy racing bike.
By the time I got home, I’d done 50km—my longest ride ever. It’s sobering to think that the longest day on AIDS/LifeCycle is, I believe, ~160km — but at least 50km is more than double my piddly average ride of late. Motivation isn’t everything, but the best BLT (with extra meat!) in Northern California might well be…
THIS WEEK’S FACTS AND FIGURES
Total distance: 97.86 (km) | 60.8 (mi)
Number of rides: 5
Percentage of fundraising target raised: Still 69%… tell your friends to donate! 😜
Time left till AIDS/Lifecycle: 18 weeks
Bravo!!
Bravo