Thursday, March 21, 2019

Tiny hills, major effort

The little town we live in is flat. The closest thing to a hill here is a gradual upslope on one of the streets nearby, and it’s not exactly challenging. There might be another similar street, but I haven’t found it yet.

So in the interest of some not-flat and a change of scenery, we tossed the bikes in the back of the truck and headed 10 miles to Davis, where bikes outnumber cars and there are miles of bike paths. Most of it is flat, too, but there are some tiny hills and seemed like a good starting point.

You can find some fun stuff along the bike paths in Davis
 Any real rider would probably laugh at using those “hills” as something to tackle, but for me it was An Event. We started at a park that has a nice path winding around and through it, and then headed up the overpass (the biggest of the hills, which are really just some inclines) and ventured onto the longer paths.

I hit that overpass pedaling hard and halfway thought that was super easy, what had I been thinking, but then 3/4 of the way my legs started yelling at me and I slowed way down…but I made it. We hit it a couple more times, as well as some other little inclines, and finished with ten miles.

The bike shorts I had on did their job; it wasn’t my screaming asterisk that made me want to stop. It was lack of food. My breakfast was long gone and I wanted a burger the size of a small child.

I also wanted ice cream, but after the burgers we decided to head home, let lunch settle, and if we still wanted it in an hour or so, we would ride to get it. And it was a chance to compare bike shorts; I wore another pair, and while they were all right, they were not as comfy as the others.

Ninety minutes later, I decided I did want ice cream, so we jumped on the bikes and took the long way. I want to burn as many calories as I was about to ingest, and came close. 250 calories burned riding there and back, 270 calories for a scoop of chocolate chip.

And that’s a huge difference from what we would have done a year ago. I think then we would have had the burgers, gone straight for ice cream–two scoops–and called the 10 miles good. this year…The 10 miles was almost enough to cover lunch–500 calories burned vs 700 eaten–but back then we would have added nearly 600 calories of ice cream to it with no additional effort.

I think the ongoing rule will be that ice cream once in a while is fine, but we have to ride there, no driving. I don’t envision wanting it that often, though, but it’s still a reasonable rule. Hell, I’ve pretty much reached the mindset that if I’m not going to bring home more than I can fit in a backpack, I ride in town. To Starbucks when I want to write there, ride. Grab something from the grocery store, ride. There’s no reason to take the car, other than laziness or pounding wind & rain.

Light rain, I’ll still ride, though I need to some up with something to better protect my computer from moisture. My backpack is fairly water resistant, but it’s not waterproof, and that sucker was pretty spendy.

Tomorrow, though…I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk. After fifteen miles and those tiny hills, my quads are bitching at me. But if it’s not a wet weather mess in the morning, I’ll still try to do a few miles, because why the hell not?

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