Today i did something i wasn’t quite sure i could do…some considered it (and i quote), “crazy”, and some (and i quote again, this time from the hard core spandex donned cyclist at the start line) a “piece of cake”.

Hm. What does that little phrase mean anyway? What’s easy about cake?! I guess boxed cake is easy, but dude… vegan gluten free cake? Now that’s complicated. Hard work, I tell you, very. So i guess this means mr.“i’m-an-amazing-portland-cyclist (and by the way… I think cyclist sounds so much more hard core! I… am a mere bike rider. However, those individuals who actually have the random buckets strapped to the side of their bikes, the mirrors protruding form their helmet, and of course the spandex… now those people are freaking the real deal, the elite… you can’t mess with the CYCLISTS!!) …but back to that great metaphor about cake…what I am trying to say is that if we think of vegan gluten free cake, then that cyclist was right. A 40 mile bike ride in Portland was a piece of cake…so much so, that I distinctly remember a few times during the ride when all i really wanted was to jump off my bike and walk it to the nearest bus stop, or die. Whichever was easier.

 

As much as it sucked at times, I pushed on, I pushed through, I prevailed, and I finished!

 

I am glad I did it… there’s something about a sea of bikes, bubbles, loud music, and honey buckets to welcome you to the finish line that make it all worth it in the end.

Not only did I get the opportunity to ride forty miles through my beloved city, I learned a few valuable lessons.

 

Numero uno. Next time I will recruit a friend to come with me, this way it can be a little more “leisure-y” as opposed to trying to keep up with the “cyclepaths.”

 

Numero dos. Do Not believe the dragon-tattooed, long grey hair, cyclist who looks more like a Harley Davidson biker than a cyclist, who is telling you the remaining mileage and incline.  So there I was biking with this guy for a few miles. “Any idea how much further we have?” I ask. “We went about thirty miles so far, but don’t worry, everything from here on out is down hill!” (We’d spent most of the day, it seemed, slowly going up)

“Sweet!! Glorious descent- here I come!!”

 

The glorious descent did NOT come when I expected- not when he said it would… before my glorious downhill, was the crazy, insane, ridiculous, and terrible ascent of Mt. Tabor. Yes, that’s Mt. as in “mountain”… ehhhhem. So UP Mt. Tabor I rode, with every bend that I could not see around, wishing, hoping, and praying that the thing would stop going UP. This is one of those times when I wanted to be a quitter… knowing i could not, i instead sunk to profanity. I yelled at that horrible unfeeling mountain… okay, “yelled” isn’t quite accurate, it was more like gasped some four letter word to tell that hill it sucked, and the man who told me the hill wasn’t there… that he too, sucked.

Numero tres. Biking forty miles isn’t really that crazy. I think some people do things like this everyday for fun. Now, I don’t actually know any of those people (see numero uno), but I know they exist. So what I did wasn’t all that incredible. I plan on doing some more of these rides in the future. Despite unforeseen hills of great magnitude, that are appropriately prefixed with “Mt.”, and bikers not biker riders, I mean “bikers- vroom vroom” that lie, it was a great experience!

 

So all and all, i think i’m like one pedal closer to being a cyclist….anyone have an old rearview mirror I can attach to my helmet? I’ll worry about the bucket and spandex another day.

 i heart my trusty lil bike.