Growing up, I loved riding bikes. My first "real" bike I remember was the standard bike for many kids in the '70's. I had a Red Schwinn Stingray. Banana seat... tassels on the handles. The whole deal.
In the blizzard of '78, I had left my bike outside. I giant icicle formed on the side of the house... you guessed it, it encased my bike. When it thawed, it pretty much crushed the bike.
My next bike didn't last long. It was a Huffy "BMX" bike. Months after getting it, it was stolen from school. Myself and 2 other friends had our bikes all locked together onto the playground fence at grade school. Mine was closest to the fence. We left school at the end of that day and my bike was gone, the other 2 were still sitting there. The "good" thing that came of this? The school installed bike racks up next to the building for us to lock our bikes up.
My next bike was a small 10 speed. I've never been all that tall, so this small 10 speed fit me and I had this one until it literally fell apart around about the time of my Junior/Senior year in high school.
By this time, I had my drivers license. Getting a new bike wasn't a priority.
About 10 years later, in the early to mid '90's, I had a junky 10 speed bike that I paid $25.00 for. It didn't fit me well, but I rode it all over the place for several years.
In 1996, I was swiped by a car while riding my bike into work.
It's a moment that plays in my mind in slow motion. I can remember feeling the car so close to me and seeing the hood of the car. Then the sharp pain as the side view mirror finds it's target in my left side caboose.
It sent me, and my junky 10 speed flying. Irony being as it is, this happened right in front of an EMT's house. The EMT heard the car and came rushing out to see me and the bike sprawled on the pavement. He came up to me and asked me where it hurt. At the time, all I could think of was my back.
He had a call into emergency and the ambulance was on it's way. I got the full deal ride. Neck brace, back board, gurney ride. A trip right to the hospital with all the bells and whistles going the whole way. X-rays were taken, I was poked and prodded for a while.
It came back that there was nothing broken, but I was going be having a very difficult time sitting down for quite a while.
The bike sat in the garage, until I moved to Indy. The bike stayed at the old house, I never even thought of bringing it along.
I started running
After moving to Indy, I'd finally had enough and started running. You can go back to my first blog entries to find out about this trip.
In many of the sites, books and magazines I read about running, it came up over and over again that cycling was a good cross-training activity for runners. So the thought was planted in my mind about getting a new bike.
I would look online at bikes and drool over everything that I couldn't afford.
I finally made up my mind at the end of 2013 after I had sprained my ankle. It was time to serious look into getting a bike.
We wound up with a decent bonus at work for the year and I made my purchase. I briefly spoke about that in the blog when I got it.
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| Giant Defy 5 (small) |
I went through and got fitted to the bike. I purchase clip in shoes and pedals. I have a water bottle. I got a trainer so I could still use it in the 6 months of crap we call winter here in Indy.
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| Bottle Holder - Matches the bike almost perfectly! |
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| The Water Bottle! |
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| SIDI Genius 5 Road Bike shoes |
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| and, of course, a helmet. |
2014 - The year of saying F-it.
2014 was not a good year fitness wise for me. I pretty much gave up again.
Sure, I did several races, but I didn't train properly or at all for them. They were all painful experiences. Not something I would recommend for anyone.
One day, I hear on the news about the Tour de Cure here in Indianapolis. I look into the event and it sounds really cool! A chance to ride your bike on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway!
So, I tell my good friend Rick about the ride and it sparks his interest too. By the time November rolls around, we're signing up!! I'm jazzed to go for the big ride. Let's go all out and do the Century ride! 100 Miles on the track.
Once we sign up, there's 2 options for the Century, all on the track or do the 75k ride and finish out the 100 on the track. We're opting for the latter. 40 times around the track sounds like it might get boring!
My Century training has begun
So, here we are, 12 Weeks out until the Century ride on June 20th! My training has officially started!
Tonight was my first time back on the saddle since sometime last year.
I'm saddle sore. I'm also other kinds of sore. Biking uses different muscles than running. Those muscles haven't been used in way too long.
The PLAN for tonight was to ride an hour. I made it 35 minutes before I just couldn't stand to be on that saddle any longer. My GPS watch sensor on the bike says that it was near equivalent to 10 miles today. Wow... 1/10th of the way! That's a scary thought right now.
That was also on the trainer. I had some resistance, but not enough to make it seem like a real ride yet.
I also need to do something I never did before while training for my running events. Get some other types of training in! I will begin phasing in some in-home core exercises that I can do that should benefit both running and biking.
Tour de Cure - Indy
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Thanks for Reading!
Regards, ~Kipp
 | 2015 - Rebuilding from the Shoes up! Check the link above to see my current and past races. |
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