Ride report - Feb 11

I rode with a friend here last evening for 15 miles or so. The ride was interesting to say the least.

The temp was 22F, with a wind of 10 - 12MPH. There was at least a foot of snow on the sidewalks and road-sides, but the roads were cleared. So I bundled up in the best of winter wear and got out.

Naturally, riding the road bike was out of question, so I rode Christine's mountain bike, after having switched the Look pedals from my bike. Her bike is a neat and light-weight bike with dual disk brakes and other bits of fanciness.

My friend Remo is a very seasoned rider, putting around 6000 miles every year on his bike. He is an excellent climber.

We decided to do four loops of a five-mile circuit. All that I felt in the first run was the cold, and my incompetency in switching gears on the bike. (It was the first time for me on a mountain bike). I also started noticing ice in my drink. No problem. I shook the bottle hard; and I had my drink.

The next loop was fairly ok. By now I had warmed up, and my fingers and toes were warm, too. Nevertheless it was difficult, since it was the first time for me on the bike since a mid-December ride. By now the water bottle was much more frozen and I had to beat it really hard to get a drink out of it.

The third loop was strange. The sun was almost set and so it was a little more chillier, and the water bottle was completely frozen - I could not get a single drop out of the bottle. But I felt quite warm, thanks to the several layers of clothing.

We decided that we would stop after three loops (15 miles), because of the lack of light. And we were two miles away from finishing at home. I was drafting Remo now, but all of a sudden I started feeling a bit light-headed. Nevertheless, I focused hard and stayed on his wheel and we finished.

We quickly peeled off the outer layers and went inside Remo's home to warm up. Inside I noticed Remo's face was quite flushed and blue. By now we both felt horribly light-headed and feeble. It was a very strange feeling that we could not explain why. Then Remo's wife Patti made us an excellent meal after eating which our lives came back and we started feeling normal again. Once we were okay we realised that if we had gotten in any trouble in the last mile of our ride - anything as little as a flat tire - we would not have had the presence of mind to get through the problem, and so we would have gotten ourselves in a deep soup!

On a related note, Remo commented that I spin a lot, and he encouraged me to use a bit higher gears and make my muscles work a bit harder.