Off road and a smart new racing bike are incompatible so from now on cycling for me (Sian) will be a two-day activity. Saturday mornings will see me whizzing round the potholes of Bucks and Sunday mornings will be with the Belles on tracks. This week was the first in the new regime.
On Friday evening Vicky texted to say she couldn't do Sunday - were we on for Saturday? In my world plans are not made to be broken...so...on Saturday morning Vicky and I performed some impressive girly maintenance on my old, (30 years old) racing bike - we pumped up the tyres and tried to move the seat down (despite a lot of WD40 the latter was unsuccessful) and the whizz was on. Vicky was a little 'over-biked' though undeterred and we set off to do an inaugral 15 miles of Belles 'at speed'.
Vicky sorted out the gear changing and took to the drop handle bars with surprising ease though one worrying technical question came 2 miles in: "do you think they will break if they keep hitting the ground?" but after a short safety chat she was persuaded to put the toe clips over her toes! she didn't fall off at any junctions as I thought she might (I got to junctions before her and shouted clear as often as I could so she didn't have to stop - which, when I did just that at the A41 crossing revealed Vicky's truly impressive trust in me!!)
Despite the age and size of her bike and it's minor technical inadequacies - old gears, a bit of a click and toe clips - Vicky did really really well and the only thing causing her to trail behind (just a little) was (in my opinion) her own self doubt which manifested itself as an almost continual commentary: "Cor - this is far more aerobic than the usual", "I've got too many clothes on", "I need to do something else in the week - a class or something - to be fit enough to do this", "sorry, sorry!!" yet concluded with (as we turned in to Pollicott) - "I'm going to dust off my old Raleigh racer".
So...just thinking ahead and out loud...perhaps our 2012 challenge could see the Belles shifting up a gear?
It has been almost three years since the Belles set a challenge. We haven't stopped, we simply need to re-set and re-focus and find time to get ourselves back in the zone.
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