BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN

Oh, the joys of being through the winter. Brian and I brought our bikes out of storage today. We cleaned them up - scraped off all the twigs and stuff we'd accumulated last year, oiled the chain, and put air in the tires. We had arranged to have a day off from being on call for ambulance. So we hopped on for a great ride out to the turnoff and back. We'd been planning this all week. Yesterday was so windy here we weren't sure we would be able to ride today. But even though there was wind today we decided it wasn't enough to keep us from riding. So away we went. We made it up the first big hill going out of town. I always think that if you can make it up that one you can go anywhere you want - it is such a killer of a hill. We had jelly-legs at the top, but we made it. Around the next corner and we were into the wind. It was more wind than we had expected, but we soldiered on. By the third big hill the wind was almost pushing us back down. We kept going though because we knew that on the way back the wind would be pushing us home instead.
We ended up biking about 25 km. I had been preparing at the gym, using the stationary bike, but Brian hasn't exercised much in the last couple months, so one of us found it a little easier than the other. LOL. I'm preparing him for doing the circle - out to the turnoff, down the Campbell highway and back up the shortcut. A distance of about 40 km. The shortcut on the way back is really tough - lots of steep hills. I love being able to exercise outside. I went for my first outside run a couple weeks ago. Maybe I'm just addicted to exercise. There are worse things.