My town is the local gathering place for cyclists. On MapMyRide, a website where people can post their favorite bike routes, searching for my town's name (population 9,000 and 11 square miles) yields 43 routes. Comparitively, our neighbor Winston-Salem (pop, 223,000 and 110 square miles) gets only 37 routes. I see at least one cyclist every day riding past our neighborhood, many days I see several. And these people are serious cyclists, too. They all have those nice road bikes, aerodynamic helmets, professional clothing, special gloves, fancy shoes that clip into the bike - these people are the real deal.
A few times I've passed these cyclists on my own rides going in opposite directions, but last week I encountered some going in my direction. They were friendly as they easily passed me without any effort, waving and saying good morning, as I huffed and puffed and tried to offer a friendly smile in return. I'm sure I looked like the equivalent of a country bumpkin to them with my hybrid bike, completely non-aerodynamic helmet and regular workout clothes (well, I was wearing bike shorts, but not the "real" bike shorts that have extra padding on the bum for added comfort). Oh well, I just hope I was able to provide some amusement to their workout.
Last week the chain fell off twice while I was shift gears (both times while going up a hill!) and then I had a bunch of trouble just shifting gears in general, so I took it to the store to get adjusted. I tried it again this morning and I was concerned before I even left my neighborhood because I couldn't get it in the right gear. But finally the chain got in position and I started on my ride for the day, a two loop course on the country roads around my neighborhood (a route I found on MapMyRide, it starts right at the entrance to my neighborhood and the route was submitted by a user with the first initial and last name of my neighbor, so although I have not confirmed this with him, I am fairly certain that he developed this route).
The first half of the first loop of my ride was very nice. Two bluejays flew by, the cows on one of the farms were all hanging out close to the road and I saw two beautiful turquois birds walking along the road. I thought they might be peacocks but with a clipped tail. But I had to ask myself, why would peacocks have their beautiful tails clipped? And then I had to ask myself, why would two peacocks be walking down a country road in North Carolina? So I don't know what I saw, but they were very beautiful.
But then my pleasant ride got a bit choppy. Going up a hill, my chain wouldn't cooperate when I tried to switch gears, but I eventually made it to the top. It continued to give me trouble for about 5 minutes, just refusing to get in the right spot, but then is strangely seemed to start working again. And then suddenly a large black dog charged right at me, ferociously barking. My first instinct was to hit the brakes (I don't know!), but I quickly reversed that instinct and took off pedaling. I also noticed a rottweiler barking at me, but thankfully he didn't leave his yard (and now that I look at pictures of rottweilers online, I think the first dog was also a rottweiler, just without a lot of brown trimmings). My heart was pounding and as I kept riding, I had to decide what to do about the second loop of my ride. I decided to keep going because I really need to do this bike training since the race is in 5 days and I knew that it would take me 40 minutes to get back to that spot again and I was hoping that the dog would be on some other road by then.
On the second loop, my gears worked fine, which relieved some of my anxiety about how my bike would behave on race day. However, the dog was still there. I gave him my best fierce snarl and yelled threateningly at him, sprayed my water bottle towards him. He kept his distance when I did that, but he still ran along side of me barking. Wow, that dog was fast! There's no way I ever would have been able to out run him on my bike, but he stopped chasing me once he got to some trees, thankfully. But it was pretty scary and now, after reading on wikipedia that rottweilers were the 2nd most breed responsibile for fatal dog attacks, I don't think I want to do that route again. (Although I've ridden that route about 6 times before and today was the first time I've encountered that dog)
On a more positive note - I'm almost at 90% of my fundraising goal! Only a few more days left, but a few more donations could get me to my goal. Don't forget to check out my fundraising page at www.firstgiving.com/valglass because I just posted a pretty unflattering picture of me after a workout!
