It had to happen sooner or later, I'm actually riding a road bike. I probably haven't been on a road bike since riding a ten-speed when I was 14 or 15. Everything since then has been on a mountain bike - off-road or not.
My friend Jarrod was nice enough to give me his old road bike (which he got from his friend about six months ago). If and when I decide to get a new road bike, this bike will definitely be passed on again - continuing its excellent legacy of introducing new riders to the sport.
Road biking in the DFW metroplex is tough. Dallasites drive fast and crazy (I'm somewhat guilty of this myself) and many roads don't have shoulders. Definitely not a bike-friendly place.
So I just biked around my neighborhood, which is not as bad/small as it sounds - my community has nearly 4,000 houses and spans an area that is about 1.25 miles "high" by nearly 6 miles "wide." So in about 70 minutes, I actually covered about 16 miles without retracing very many of the roads.
It took a little getting used the road bike. First, the low position of the handle bars. Second, shifting gears - this old bike has the shifters way down on the lower cross bar of the frame. Third, being clipped into the pedals. I only crashed once during my inagural road bike ride: in a driveway, while stopping for water - couldn't get unclipped in time. I felt like I was falling in slow motion. Luckily, no damage - not even a skinned knee. Greatness ... the biking gods like me.
Jarrod told me that the best way to build up your biking legs is to find a hill and just bike up and down it. So I did the moderate grade hill right in front of my house about 5 times in succession. It wasn't too bad and I never even had to go down from the "big ring" of the front sprocket.
I guess after doing 10+23 miles of mountain biking last week, I was expecting 16 miles of road biking to be no problem. I am happy to say that my expectations were met.
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