Strawberries

Weight: 223.6
Delta M: -0.2
Mileage: 33.4 (Single Speed)
June Mileage: 312.4

Single speed, it’s good for your legs, but even better for your soul. That’s how bikers who read too many cycling magazines talk. They will probably throw in “Steel is real” for good measure. Apparently carbon fiber is a figment of the collective’s imagination. Anyway it roughly translates to “Ouch, I took the wrong bike out for today’s ride.” Single speeds are simple and fun and make it feel like your 12 years old again, but if you get stuck out in the wind with too tall of a gear what you thought was a bump last time you rode over it can turn into hill that seems to defy Euclidean geometry. You either have to pedal real hard, or fall down in front of people and look really stupid, which is good for us lazy Clydesdales, it keeps us honest.

I had set out on the single speed hoping to do at least 30 miles, but it took a while to warm up, and the wind seemed rougher than what the weather channel said it would. After the first 5 miles I was hurting enough to question knocking my goal down to 20. But eventually the wind seemed to die and the kinks worked themselves out and I was able to settle in. I paced it pretty good, I always felt I was just on the edge of pushing things and managed to hold that for about 2 hours. I was definitely hurting the last few miles; all I could think about was cold strawberries. Perfect.