On Wednesday morning nine of my friends from the Woman Tours 2013 Southern Tier Cross Country trip (CCST 2013) will set off on THE ride I have long wanted to do: along the Atlantic Coast from Florida to my home state of Maine. Given the orthopedic problems I've struggled with the past year I knew being able to actually ride would be a challenge.Or to paraphrase my husband I have so many orthopedic issues I have subscriptions. But I needed a goal, and perhaps more so, I needed some hope. So I signed up to ride. I figured if I couldn't ride I would lose the equivalent of buying two pair of shoes I never wear. In other words, I had little to lose because I already have a closet full of shoes I rarely wear.
By mid summer I knew I was not going to be able to get into the shape needed to ride, and thus, reluctantly withdrew from the Atlantic Coast Trip, allowing Woman Tours to replace me with someone on their waiting list. I did give myself a consolation gift: March at The Villages in Florida, where I rode my bike almost every day and got to spend some time riding with a couple of CCST friends who are about to embark on the northbound journey. I rode with other friends, many from the CCST. And I rode by myself, testing out replaced joints, figuring out new ways to get on and off the bike so I wouldn't fall. In all, it was a terrific month.
During the days I struggled with my decision to withdraw from the ride I questioned my ability to bike at all-- until my 6 ft tall sister, who has legs long enough to lift over any bike frame, suggested I try getting a step-thru bike with upright handlebars. My cross country bike is a road bike with 700 C tires and a carbon frame. My back up bike is a 12 year old Trek Hybrid I still love to ride. There just seemed something wrong about chosing a "comfort bike." Yet listening to Laura talk about her spin around Freeport in just such a bike from LL Beans convinced me to give it a whirl.
I am so glad I did. The comfort bike I wound up purchasing, a 21 speed Electra Townie, cost one quarter of my cross country bike. It has a much heavier frame than my road bike but weighs no more than the hybrid. It has brakes I can easily maneuver, unlike the brakes on my road bike, which forever seemed to be broken. At first I thought that might be a problem, but it has turned out to be a blessing. I feel solidly stable on that bike. I have actually had to get used to the fact I can slide my foot off the pedal and onto the ground. No fancy footwork or madly made jumps because a tourist failed to look in my direction before stepping into the cross walk. There are just enough changes in elevation at The Villages for me to experiment with changing gears. And they worked.
Then I started reading an interesting little book by Grant Petersen called Just Ride. In it Petersen writes about people who ride bikes for a living versus those who don't. He even has a name for us: unracers. His point is a lot of the "must haves" currently marketed to average riders including gloves, fancy shirts, and biking shorts might be required for racers, and useful for my Cross Country friends, but are probably not necessary for people who ride less than four hours a day.His comments about biking for pleasure made a huge amount of sense, especially when I realized that once I got rolling I could bike as fast on my Townie as I could on my road bike.
And then I got home from Florida. Piles of snow still covered huge sections of our front yard. Others covered the shoulder along my most favorite route. Worst yet, when I took my bike to the shop for a minor adjustment I discovered somewhere along the way the bike had been hit, its frame bent. I have no idea what happened. My guess is someone in a golf cart didn't realize he backed into the bike rack in one of the town squares where I'd parked my bike. But I will never know.
So tomorrow of the next day I am off to buy another Townie, or perhaps its cousin. My biggest concern is no longer "is this a good choice?" but "should I get the ocean blue or the hot pink?" Both would look pretty good with my neon green basket.
