Where There's a Hill

My sister-in-law got me a cool t-shirt for my birthday this year. It's got a drawing of a bike on it, and it says "Where there's a hill, there's a way." I love it. Perfect slogan, it's a nice neutral dark yellow color, it's lightweight, and it fits good.

We biked 22 miles this morning. 11 miles to the Cracker Barrel, a big breakfast, then 11 miles home again. There are a few hills along that route, none too ultra-challenging, but a couple of good stretches that make you work a bit.

Sometimes when I'm riding, I think of the perfect thing to say on the old blog... Then by the time I get home, it's usually gone. Unless it's really, really good. Then I can remember it.

Today, as I was going up one of the hills, it occurred to me that there are several strategies for tackling hills on a bicycle. I consistently use two of them: the one that I prefer is to keep pedaling, staying in the same gear, kicking those thigh muscles up a notch and working a little bit harder. With that technique, you keep your speed up, you get to the top faster, and you get a nice sense of accomplishment. But sometimes, I'm just a bit too tired and I need to use strategy #2: downshift until I can keep the same cadence with the same level of effort as before I got to the hill... This one slows you down a little bit, but sometimes ya gotta.

Looking forward to a few more bike rides yet this summer. The weather is finally just about perfect for bike rides a few times a week lately. I like it.

Pedal always!