Thinking through a bike ride

The sun was shining. The birds were tweeting. II was frustrated because I did not have my bb gun with me.


So instead of plunking a few Tweety Birds for my good friend Sylvester the Cat, my good friend Robert Tres and I elected to go for a bike ride.

So I thought I might give you a play by play.

First, we started off on the Fanno Creek trail, a fairly flat stretch of bike trail.

Wow, this is nice. Feels good to have a nice breeze, be pumping my legs, riding at a casual pace. Good times.

Then we took a slightly different trail, one involving a certain amount of hills. Up hills.

This is not bad at all. It actually feels kind of good to expend some extra effort. Or is it? This seems like a pretty big hill. This hill just keeps going. Come to think of it, this hill is a bit steeper than I thought it would be. My legs hurt. I am too old for this. I cannot keep going.

In my own defense, it was a pretty steep hill...probably climbed 12 or 13" over the course of a mile. I will just let my thoughts carry you along, and let you imagine the rest of the terrain.

Well, no problem. Made it up the hill. I guess I can do this. What the...another hill? Well, lets see how this one goes.

Legs...burning. Lungs...bursting. Resolve...weakening. Must...not...show...weakness. I must make it up this hill. I think I can.

I....I think...gasp...I think I....huff....I think I can....puff...I...huff...think...puff, gasp, puff, huff, gasp...I...huff huff puff gaps huff gasp puff gasp huff can.

Whew. Made it. I bet now we will have a goodly amount of...what the smurf? ANOTHER uphill? This thing is like straight up and down. There is no way my wheezing gasps for breath, spaghetti legs can power me up this hill. But I will see how far I can go.

Oh, the pain. Someone kill me now. Look back, see how far up the hill we are...whoops, maybe 10'. Not a good sign. Stop, rest. Legs...on fire. Lungs...ripped out of my chest. But at least we are at the crest of the hill. Look, a downhill!

Whhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee what the uphill again? really?

Can't do it. So...many...hills. All going up. I must be in that famous MC Escher painting where every staircase goes higher than the next one except somehow those fiends at the road department did it with roads.
I am pretty sure it is physically impossible for every inch of our ride to be uphill.


I better look back and see if parts of my body are dropping off from exhaustion. We must have been riding for 20 hours by now and gone 200 miles. Robert Tres is not even slowing down. Dude is a machine. I am jealous.

And it is not just this uphill we have been on for 36 hours making me think that.

Oh, look, I can see his speedometer...what? 10 miles? Well, at least only 9.2 of them have been uphill. Half a mile has been flat so we have, by aggressive estimate, already been blessed with 3 tenths of a mile of downhill.

Did my legs get amputated? I cannot even feel them anymore. Too much effort. I forgot my name. Where am I? Who am I? Why is there air?

What the...ANOTHER, EVEN STOUTER AND LONGER UPHILL?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

There is no possible way. Cannot do this. Who thought this was a good idea? why do people do this? There is no way this is worth it. Not even close. Why do people work out to the point where they "feel the burn"? I quit. I am never touching a bike again. I hate this. I hate my life. I hate...

Oh. We are at the crest of the hill. We are going downhill. I have not pedaled in 5 minutes and am all but passing cars on the freeway below. This is awesome! This is so totally worth it. When we reach the bottom, I am climbing it so I can have this downhill again

oh no, we are going uphill again I hate my life I am gonna die my legs got ripped off by the bike rider leg ripping off troll and my lungs got ripped out by the exerciser destroying gnome of doom this is the worst pain of my life oh wow another downhill I love this this is so awesome let this hill never end oh no another uphill I cannot do this I...

Oh. We are home.

Another light 30 mile 3.5 hour ride dropped on the world. Take that, puny hills! Bwooohahahah!

hang on a second, someone knocking at the door. be right back.





Hi. I am the new author of this blog. The former author was trash-talking us. So a few of us hills got together and ripped his legs off. One cell at a time. Sorry about that.

4 comments:

Robert Tres said...

I think my favorite part was between the bottom of the first hill and when I started crying myself to death.

True story.

Bike up K2 next weekend?

Riot Kitty said...

Bwahahaha! He was only stoic while he was in front of you. He started bawling the moment he came home ;)

G. B. Miller said...

This one had a better running internal dialouge than the other one.

Ahhh the glorious days of blowing out body parts in a futile attempt at becoming health-ier.

Darth Weasel said...

Robert, only if we can do it twice. Otherwise, where is the challenge?

RK, stoicism is his strong suit. he is as stoic as Doris Day.

G, glad you were amused. I am starting again on trying to get to a healthy weight. last time I dropped 45 pounds, but I have gotten almost 20 of them back. But I have a plan, so should get back to a healthy weight I like soon