Sometimes I get carried away ...

or should be?

Yesterday started all wrong. I was startled, actually shaken out of bed by the joker upstairs turning up the music so loud I thought the building was under attack, or that a train was derailing and about to destroy the building. I wish I was kidding. That was noon, I'd only made it to bed at 6, so I'd not had anything like enough sleep yet. But after I got over th shock of being rudely awaked and having to deal with said neighbor who claimed he could do whatever he wanted and I could go to hell, I worked on getting my day started.

Which was when I KNEW! I was all a twitter with excitement. My new bike was not only in, but was ready and waiting for me to pick it up. I was certain of it. So I called my LBS to confirm. Sure enough they'd just put it together and were going to give me a call when I called them. Huzzah! Now it's one of those things you're just going to have to take on faith. I just know things sometimes in spite of having no possible way of knowing. I chalk it up to intution, folks around me call it magic. Either way, it works.

It also solved nicely for me the problem I was having with the scheduled pick up day of the seventh. Despite being almost two weeks away, I knew the seventh wasn't going to work cause it would mean I'd get my new bike wet before I could even ride it, and that had me annoyed. Again, I just know things. I was frustrated because if I waited till the seventh, she'd get wet riding home on the outside of the car and I wouldn't get to ride her. It was going to rain on the seventh and be a crappy day, I just knew it.

Saturday however was PERFECT. Then there was the issue of making sure I had enough to pick her up and still not have to touch my reserve until payday. When it dawned on me, that my credit card would be fine. Again, no way to know that since I'd only just checked my account and there wasn't enough room there. Except they'd increased the limit on Friday the day after I checked it. So of course when I checked again, more than enough room, and yes, somehow I knew before I checked. Lots of knowing going on I know, but the force has always been strong in me, these days it's getting stronger. I don't know why, but my intuition has grown in leaps and bounds over the last couple of years.

So I got dressed, hoped in the jumper and headed over to the LBS totally giddy with excitement! It was a perfect day, early enough to make it to the park for a shakedown, perfect weather oh I was so about to get high! Every bit the junky craving her next hit, her next high, I knew I was going to be flying soon!

Some people take to drink, others drugs, still others risk taking whatever the drug of choice is for them. For me it's biking. It's that confluence of sensation, effort, movement and more that gets me into "the zone" as it's called and tripping. Time and space vanish as for an unending moment in time I'm transported to this nearly perfect state. And I wanted it again. I missed it, needed it. Craved it like the addict I am. It had only been made worse by the taste I'd been given a few days before. Yes, again magic I know, but it worked for me.

So I'm at the LBS, and there she is sitting on the floor waiting for me. I got closer and I really started to burn with joy. If you've been with me on this little adventure I was fraught for a time with the decision of what color to get. Purple stripe, or Black stripe. I settled on black because black goes with everything and it would draw a lot less attention to the bike. But I really stressed about color. And then there she was:

You can see on the right how lucky I got? Yeah, bike is black, but the striping is purple. Oh my, she is so pretty! The rest of the stripes on the frame are purple as well. Turns out she's a really good looking ride because it's subtle, gloss black with a liberal splash of purple in long, clean lines. As it turns out MORE noticeable than purple stripe which would have been gloss purple with black stripes. So after finishing the paperwork, loading the extra stand I go for the house to hold her out of the way inside, I carefully mounted the bike rack to Jumper one, and then placed my new baby on the rack, ready to head off to Winton Woods Park for a shakedown cruise. I was moments away from finally being on a bike again! Made my way to Winton, parked, took Serenity off the rack and set about my first lap around the lake.

It was an utter embarrassment. Epic failure the like of which they might even write songs about. How bad? I pushed, huffing, puffing, and fighting my way up the hills trying to figure out the gearing, rolling down the hills not going too fast for fear of problems. Long on the brakes, short on the flying. I'd forgotten to bring the album with me that I wanted to listen to on the first ride, forgotten to turn on the tracking system that would give me metrics on speed, course, distance, elevation and put it all on a nice neat Google map. And then, at the end of the first tortured lap, I pulled to the side to turn the tracking software on, put down my foot to stand up and promptly fell over. Yup, leg came out from under me like it was made of latex.

Sure, I'd have the strength to make it the almost two miles around the lake, but my legs while stronger than I had hoped after so many years of neglect had no tone to them whatsoever. "Wait, you want me to push you and the bike two miles up and down hills and them remember how to stand up? What are you smoking woman?" So down I went, Serenity still between my legs, and hard. So much so that the frame smacked the inside of my thigh right above the knee with enough force to leave a massive ugly bruise like someone had hit me with a bat.

Thankfully I know how to fall correctly so the only real damage was the bruise on my thigh and a little scraped skin near my elbow. It could have been so much worse.

And of course I lay there on the ground like a loon laughing! Finally I composed myself, got my legs untangled from Serenity, stood up, picked her up and put down the kickstand and brushed myself off. Took out the magical little phone in my pocket and turned on the tracking system, mounted up and started on my second, first lap this time tracking it for posterity. Thinking to myself that when next I stopped, to be more careful about standing up mindfully and started around the lake.

Didn't make a complete lap before I stopped again, my insulted muscles complaining about the continuing abuse. After all brand new ride, new gearing system I'd never used before, new push button shifts I didn't know HOW to use correctly yet, and the seat too low all conspired to leave me in pain and out of energy going up another of the hills. SO I stopped and sat down, for a while. Lovely bench over looking the lake, perfect weather, early enough in the day to be able to manage my goal of three laps on the record.

So I sat for a bit and let my body recover some. Finished that hill by walking up, mounted up and started riding again. Made the rest of that first lap without incident thankfully and then stopped at the same bench to recover some.  The shot above left is Serenity waiting patiently for me to myself together enough to continue on.  Finished a second lap, and then a third on the record which was my goal for the first ride, and noticed some problems I'd have to watch the next time I rode to see if she needed serious attention.

Now I promised everyone that I'd take it easy on my first ride, that I'd limit myself to three laps which would be five miles.  What I'd not taken into consideration was the fact that with three laps on the record, riding to and from the parking lot, and that first unrecorded lap, it came out to seven miles.  Oops, I got carried away.  Plus to make matters worse I was going to work me way around the lake like I usually do, which makes the grades harder. So note to self to take the ride counter clockwise next time, and go a bit easier on myself, sticking to my plan of five miles.

All in all, still a blessed day that started out all wrong.  It's now two weeks to the day since I picked her up and I'm finally finishing this post.  The nasty bruise on the inside of my thigh is now just a ring of purple the size of a small pancake and it should be gone in another few days.  Since then I've been out a number of times, have put a total of 24 miles behind me and am having a wonderful time.  But more about that in another post.  I have another I need to get out today and wanted to finish this one first.