My first organized ride of the year! I got up early in the morning on the 16th to head up north to Humble (pronounced "uhm-bull", not "hum-bull" ;) ) for their annual Lions Club bike ride, benefitting handicapped and diabetic children. This is one of the first rides I participated in back in 2010, so it was fun to head back up this year.
At the starting line!
However, it turned out not to be as "fun" as I had hoped. The weather was quite cold; started out in the low 40s. And, I had forgotten my nice warm biking gloves that Vicki had given me a couple years back! (of which she said "like you ever need gloves this warm in HOUSTON...") Other aspects made it a "terrible" ride as well; first, my iHome for my bike was evidently running out of batteries, so I could barely make out the songs that were being played (and they were definitely out of tune and full of static). AND, as I had charged my iPod the night prior, I had forgotten to set it back up to only play music from my "Random Music" playlist; meaning it was playing music from EVERYTHING I had on my iPod. Which includes some classical music, some meditations, other instrumental music...none of which is helpful when trying to get pumped up and ride a bike!
So the first half of the ride was pretty miserable. I was cold, I didn't have music to keep me occupied, and the sunlight was bothering my eyes as well. I was finding it difficult to focus and differentiate the various obstacles or debris on the gruond, and determine if they were a threat to me. Again, I think that's part of my fears arising from falling off the bike in October, but it still contributed to the "when is this 11 miles going to END..."
I got to the rest stop at the halfway point and did my best to fix this issues plaguing my ride. I changed out the batteries on my iHome, and thankfully that seemed to fix the sound issue. And I went into my iPod to select the correct Playlist, giving me the right songs to sing along to and have a good beat. I got myself a couple snacks, filled up my water, and then with a big sigh got back on the bike and headed back to the start.
The ride back was a more manageable, but it was still cold and I was still struggling with seeing some things. Another frustrating aspect on the way back is that a few of the cops weren't actually stopping traffic as I came up to intersections; so I'd have to slow down, unclip, and wait at a 4-way stop to take my turn to go. That is generally one of the benefits of the organized rides; the ability to just keep going and not have to worry about stopping at every intersection. So that was just one more thing that made it so I could not WAIT for this ride to be over.
Finally, after what seemed like FOREVER, I made it back to the start and pulled in. One redeeming factor of the ride was a tasty spaghetti lunch; it was nice and warm, and just tasted SO good after the miserable ride. After filling my belly, I packed up the bike and headed home; I had to hurry, cause I had to get to piano class at 1!
Thus ended my first organized ride of 2013; but it's only the beginning!
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