Bike Shop Wisdom

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October 1, 2013 by little hurdles big race

On Sunday I decided to take my bike up to Jamestown and ride the Island Circle and the Jamestown/Richmond bike trail.  This is approximately 25 miles.

Let me digress for a second to tell you that this bike trail is scheduled to span from Historic Jamestown to Richmond – but has been under the same construction for over a year with no progress.  😦

Anyway, my back wheel was out of true and was squeaking a bit so I took it around the corner to the new neighborhood bike shop.  The owner always calls me “TV lady” and has done two minor repairs to my bike for free.

This time as he put my bike up on the rack we were chatting and he said he saw me the other day biking around the fort, chit-chat…  He then commented that my gear was up really high.  I tend to try to bike at the highest gear possible.  He said, “you keep this up you’re going to have legs of steel”.  I laughed and said “well that’s the goal, right?”.

I told him I was planning my ride in Jamestown and then we got on the subject of the delay in the trail construction.  I commented that the frustrating part is that the trail ends about 500 yards after you climb up and over a very high bridge over the Chickahominy River.  When you go up the first time you are coming off a downgrade and you have a lot of momentum from that to make the climb.  I told the owner that I just make the climb and then turn around and reverse the ride from there.

He shook his head and said, “legs of steel TV lady…legs of steel”.  To make matter worse he then told me that he bikes about 25 miles round trip to his shop every day.

So here it is – the end of the trail.

Yes, I went up and over that bridge twice.  I hated it at the time but it is conquered and it only gets easier from here.

Your mind will always convince you to stop before your body will stop – overcome that voice and challenge yourself.  I assure you it is worth it!