This summer I bought a roadbike from a friend. Targo is his name (the bike, not the friend), and he helps me zip around Halifax. I’ve become one of those bike nerds chasing an imaginary something down Agricola and Windsor Streets as I make my way toward work on the Dalhousie Campus. The commute is only about 3-4 km each way each day, so it isn’t exactly strenuous, but it has been enough to make me real excited about biking.
i used to hate biking. Hate with a Capital 8, so to speak. But this time around, things are different. I think things are different because of the moustache-handlebars. Cycling up and down Halifax roads doesn’t feel so horrible now that the bike frame allows me to lean into the wind I’m making for myself.
All this cycling has given given me a Wicked Cool Biking Idea. Last weekend, I was waiting on a bus to take me to a friend’s house. The bus came around and I saw the bike rack and I realized I could take the bus to God Knows Where, HRM, Nova Scotia, and then I could spend the day biking to various Cool Places. How fun that would be! And then the Wicked Cool Biking Idea hit me. The next time I’m in SoCal (which is about once a year – blessed at the in-laws), I’m going to bike from one end of Joshua Tree National Park to the other.
Although JTNP doesn’t have an steep hills (it’s two desert plateaus), this is not going to be any pleasure ride. It’ll be a 90km trek, which is pretty damn long for some one like me. I’m reasonably fit, and I can run 90+ minutes without feeling too rough the next day, but I don’t know what a 90km ride feels like when you’re in the saddle at km-85, let alone when you’re resting the next day.
This means that serious training is in order. I haven’t figured out exactly what the training is going to be, but it’ll likely begin next weekend with a journey somewhere to Outer Reaches, HRM (see also: God Knows Where, HRM), followed by other week-end rides of increasing lengths before the weather sends me inside until Spring 2011.
I’ll keep ya posted if anything comes of this.
oregano 