Every training ride season since I began riding and training for AIDS Lifecycle, there are always a couple of training rides that bring me back to the memories of the year when I myself began training for the Ride in 2003.
I remember buying the bike, spending the whole weekend studying it to figure out how it worked, riding with my husband up and down the street and falling. I had been falling so many times that I had at least 12 band-aids on my legs and knees by the time Monday came. My pedals were set too tight so that I had a hard time un-clipping from them- I mean I had the weakest ankles you could imagine anyway so that twisting motion of getting out was really difficult!
I also remember climbing a really small hill (not small at the time to me) and having my gears in the wrong place and nothing I could do would make the pedaling easier, and even when I did click the correct lever to make it easier, two minutes later I couldn't remember what it was that I clicked....it was soo frustrating. The fact that I couldn't breathe whenever I went up hill made it even harder, and it was pure hell but I was determined to get it right.
Yesterday's ride in Hollister brought me back to that year and its memories again, and made me realize again the reason that I decided to become a Ride Leader and why I like it so much....
Carmen came out to ride with us yesterday ( at some point I'm sure she's gonna read this blog so I hope she doesn't mind that I'm writing about her). It was her first ride with an official ALC training ride, her first "group ride" ever. I sensed the overwhelming nervousness from her when she approached me at let me know that she was still learning her bike and that she had fallen alot and thus far had said to herself that if she couldn't get the hang of it she was giving up.
I looked her straight in the eye and said- "falling is not a reason to quit. We all fall. We still all fall even after years of riding. Its sort of inevitable..." and she looked at me like "yeah right", and said "okay."
Two minutes later, my friend Scott who was also on the ride with us, demonstrated that fact by rolling to a stop while admiring someones bike, forgetting to unclip and falling right in front of Carmen.
Thanks for confirming my statement, Scott.
For the next 20 miles, I rode with Carmen up and down some pretty hilly roads in Hollister. Mostly I rode behind her so I could look to see what gear she was in, then call out "cllck your right big lever" or "right small lever" or "keep pedaling!" or "use the momentum of the downhill to get up the next uphil!". She was obviously very determined because she listened intently to what I said and was able to finally figure out what levers did what. Climbing hills where a little hard for her just because she was not used to it, but she would absolutely not stop to walk her bike up the hill if she felt she could keep pedaling. She reminded me of me, three years ago, absolutely determined not to be defeated... except I indeed stopped at just about every hill that was too hard. I guess I was not as hard headed as Carmen is!
Its rides like these that make me happy about being a ride leader. When I can help in making someone succeed and they end up enjoying their ride and training, I feel pretty damn good.
She asked me, as most newbies do, how long I'd been riding, how many ALC rides I had done, what else I did to train besides riding my bike, etc. We talked about different centuries she had heard of, and when I told her I had done most of them she was astounded... 100 miles in one day ? Wow. I thought back to my first conversatin with someone when they told me they had ridden 100 miles in one day and how I thought it would never be possible for me to do that! 100 miles? It would take me at least 15 hours if not more!!
So I am living proof (as are many many more of the Training Ride Leaders) that you can accomplish riding 585 miles in 7 days. That you can ride 100 miles in one day, heck even 200 miles if you're THAT determined, that you will make great life long friends when you go through this with them. But sheer determination will not be enough to do it, you must ride and ride and ride. And if you fall, you get up and ride and ride and ride some more. And when you fall and tear your cycling tights, you stitch them up and ride again, then tell people the story of why it tore in the first place. And when that scrape bleeds through your leg warmers don't worry, spandex makes a great tourniquet and the blood washes out in the wash.
And if you need my help, just ask but don't stop riding!
