I went for my first ride on my new bike today despite the fact that it was still a bit on the chilly side.  Loaded up on layers and hit the road at about 12:45.  I got in a good 1.5 hours on the bike – enough to stretch out all my cables and need to get some adjustments done – and clocked about 16 miles.  This was not only the first ride on the bike, but the first ride of my season.  I may have overdone it, but it was really hard to stop.  For the first time since I started riding again two years ago, I did not get passed by anyone on the trail – this may have had to do with the fact that there weren’t a lot of people out there, but I’m gonna count this as a Win anyway.

I had no virtually no discomfort on the bike and did not suffer from numbness in my hands and feet like I normally do on my mountain bike.  This is awesome!

During the ride I had a lot of time to think, which is part of why I ride.  I had two things pop into my head as I was riding.  The first was the memory of riding with one of my D-phi brothers Dano back in 1992/93.  Dano was into road bikes and I was into mountain bikes.  He had a sweet Cannondale and I had a clunky steel Schwinn road bike that didn’t even fit me really.  I remembered Dano kicking my ass on hills.  I wonder how I’d stack up with him these days.

The second was a vision of the future.  A friend at work was telling me the story of one of his friends who was recently out for a ride with his son who at some point, gave him “the Lance Lookback” and bolted on like lightening.  I had a vision of Mr. Grey doing that to me sometime in down the road and well, I can’t wait for that to happen.  It’s gonna be pretty damn rad.