Not the World's Best Spitter

I am an adult who never learned to ride a bicycle as a kid. I grew up in this fairly bike-friendly town of Albuquerque, and it's not like my parents and brothers did not try to help me learn. They bought me a black bicycle with Space Invadersque characters all over it and the caption "Space Star". To think of it, that seems pretty cool now, but as a kid, I did not really think much of it. It could have lost the "Space Star" label and that would've been alright. My bike had training wheels and my parents took me out to the caldesac near my house and helped me do laps. I hated any kind of physical activity at the time and did not have a lot of confidence in my coordination. I did foster my passion for computer programming at the time and had fun doing it, but that's a whole nother blog. I had brief stints during my teen years and early adulthood where people tried to teach me how to ride a bike. One friend gave up me almost right away when I did not just take off like a rocket. One of my girlfriends just took me to the college with her and let me figure it out for myself on her mother's bike. Quite honestly, that's one of the best things she's ever done. I figured out that riding a bike was feasible. By the way, don't ever leave your girlfirend's mother's bike outside in Florida. That bike was not in such great condition when I returned it.

So, a couple of years ago, I decided I was going to learn how to ride a bike. I bought a mountain bike from one of my friends and decided to hit the trail. Most days I've ridden the same stretch of trail up and down. And I still kind of do, expanding out on occasion. I think the previous two years, I've just had lack of goals and boredom. It was okay that I wobbled along the path as long as I did not hit anyone. Other activities quickly became more pertinent and endurance was not built.

I've hit the trail much harder this year, I think. I did not have an odometer in previous years, so it's really hard to tell. I know I've been biking more consistently, though, and I am beginning to feel some progress in terms of leg strength and endurance. Mind you, enduring 6 miles with some of it downhill and 15 whole seconds of extra leg strength is not a big deal. But for this boy, it's a start. And now this boy has goals! I want to be able to ride my bike to work, and I want to start doing it daily. The hurtles involve coming out of my comfort zone on certain points. We have bike paths that run along the streets, and it may be necessary to use them to a certain extent. It almost certainly will. I do not trust cars, and this is a good thing. I just have to make sure I have enough control of my bike to be around cars. Right now, I don't feel I do. (It's easy to start wobbling when I feel tired.) The other part is distance. Home is all uphill, though most of it should not be very steep. Riding up in the general direction of the mountains is good exercise and I am finding it challenging to say the least.

So, now that we have that covered, I'd like to record my progress today. My goal is to be sure I ride 8km (approximately 5 miles) about 4 times this week. Today, I made 10.22 km. One of the things I am working on right now is being able to turn my head to look around me without turning the handlebars too. Silly as it might sound, I am finding hard to look over my shoulder without accidentally turning right. Even better. Don't consider spitting to be a skill? Didn't partake of spitting contests as a kid? You may live to regret it. I know I am. Today, a bug flew into my mouth while I was biking. I turned my head and spit right on my arm.