Recently I picked up a book called the Four Hour Body by Tim Ferris. Now, it's an entertaining book with a lot of interesting info, but is admittedly (by the author) not a health book. At first I was a little bamboozled as to why I'd picked up this book again. The author himself says it's not a health book and it has waaaaaaaay to many animal foods in it for my liking. I'm not saying that no one will get anything from it, I'm sure some will but I've read it before and know it's not my style. Yet I was drawn...
A little while into the book I found out what it was that was pulling me to it. Stats. Tim was banging on about how some people really need to follow numbers to see progress so that they know they're moving forwards. I had my "aha!" moment right there and then. Numbers! I love numbers... not in depth, but I love to see that last week my ride took xxx amount of time covering xxx km's and this week it's a little less or if it's a little more I can agonise over the "whyyyyyy? Whyyyy must you be more? I've been good!" of it all.
So I contacted a friend of mine. You may of heard of him. If you haven't, you should know, he has strong opinions, (I'm sure he'd say they're not opinions but fact and I kinda envy him his certainty), he can be obnoxious and he can be super kind. We've had our stouches but these days we seem to get along ok. We're probably more aquaintances than friends but the word friend always slips out. He's known online as Durianrider and he LOVES to cycle. So I emailed him and asked a few questions. I was surprised when he wrote back right away asking for a photo of my bike and a few other bits of info. I sent what he'd asked for through and he laughed his tiny vegan ass off at my bike. LOL. Thanks Harley!
He also came through with some great advice. "get a decent bike". He gave me some solid advice and I thanked him for it. Then this morning I spent some time online watching every video he's ever done on cycling and also watched a few by his GF Freelee as well (equally controversial).
I went to some bike stores today. The first was actually where I thought I'd get my bike. But when I walked in I could see that the store was half empty. There was one sales person on the floor and he was busy. I waited 25 minutes and no one else came out so I left. There was one bike there, a road bike, that I was very drawn to that was heavily discounted and sooooo lovely but it would have been too small for me anyhoo. The next store had no road bikes, none! The man who served me was lovely but I just wasn't drawn to anything they had in stock. The third store was packed with loads of bikes and the man behind the counter was lovely. He said "Hello" to me when I walked in then let me peruse the shop at leisure stopping to check on me at just the right time.
He asked me some key questions:
How confident are you on the road?
Do you ride alone or with others?
How often do you ride?
What average distance do you ride?
How good is your core strength?
After asking these and a few more he looked at me carefully (like I might explode! How did he know?) and then gently said "I wouldn't sell you a road bike" and then proceeded to tell me why. To tell the truth I was a little relieved! I see people just flying along on their road bikes and I'm not ready for that yet. I don't have the core strength to be at that angle comfortably and he mentioned that visibility is reduced at the angle of road bikes compared to commuter bikes.
So I ended up with a new commuter bike. It's so lovely! I really wanted a bike that was colourful as my last few bikes have been black but I ended up with a gray bike that sang to me the second I saw it. It's all alloy as per Harley's advice and also has no front suspension.
I took it home from the store and then went to do grocery shopping. Imagine my surprise when I got home to find my brand spanking new bike, that I had only ridden tentatively around the car park at the bike store being ridden joyously by Mr JDF! I'm quite territorial about things that are 'mine' so after shouting futilely at him to 'get off my new bike!!!' I put the shopping away and then we went for a ride.
What a difference! It's so nice to ride... we did 11kms and it was easy. Normally I do 7k's on the way to work and I'm just munted by the time I get there. This ride had more hills, unfamiliar territory and I smashed it. It still felt like I'd done a workout, jelly legs and sweat etc etc, but I enjoyed it a lot more. I'm soooooo looking forward to riding to work tomorrow.
I really enjoy riding with Mr JDF. He's fitter and stronger than me but will slow to my pace and I appreciate that he will do so without being smart about it.
We have a fitness date next Saturday morning. Excited! xx
Harley's links:
Freelee's links:
They're both strong confident and staunch vegans so if this isn't for you, you've been warned!
No comments:
Post a Comment