Saturday, April 5, 2008 [0M]

20M bike ride. Since I was already close to my goal mileage for the week I thought I would benefit more from taking a day off running and doing some biking instead. This was my first long ride with my new bike and I looked more like a biker this time since I also invested in some bike shorts. I bought some bike shoes as well but I need to replace my pedals before I can use them so I was once again riding with my running shoes. I headed up Ralston Ave to Canada Rd, continued all the way to Woodside Rd and looped back down El Camino. I pretty much sucked at going uphill and the climb up Ralston was rather brutal. I'm still trying to figure out which gear to use for different inclines so I was shifting a lot and probably wasting a lot of energy. Once I got to flat surfaces on Canada Rd I got into a good rhythm and put in a good effort. There were a lot of other bikers along Canada and naturally I got competitive and was mostly kept passing people. It felt a bit strange though, since I couldn't just blow by people like I do when I'm running but had to work to get by and then had to make sure I wouldn't slow down after I was ahead. It was entertaining, though, especially since I looked a lot more amateurish compared to everyone else. I find it a bit strange that everyone riding a road bike is dressed up like a professional cyclist whereas I rarely see anyone running in running shorts. after having invested quite a bit of money to get a nice bike you might as well get all the necessary gear. I'm sure I have a lot more to learn about biking.