I have always been terrified of bike riding especially on busy roads. I’m quite certain that I will get hit by a car or skid on gravel, fall in the road and have my torso run over by a truck causing my guts to squirt out my mouth thus ending my life as a wanna be athlete (not to mention a mother, a sister, a woman with dreams, etc). As such, the number of miles I have biked in my life until last summer could probably have been counted on my hands if you leave out my disastrous triathlon of 2001 (and we won’t count that, please). I did that one on a Schwinn Varsity 10 speed and that’s all I’m going to say for now.

Last summer my siblings and I took a vacation in the San Juan Islands – the ones off of Washington State. We rented bikes and biked all over the place and it was really, really fun. Who could have imagined what having another 11 gears could do for the sport? I was a much better biker than I had remembered and I was able to manage my fear of cars reasonably well.

When I got back I discovered that a couple of friends I swim with also really like to bike and a biker chick was born. I even took an upgrade on my bike about a month ago and went from my utterly ridiculous Schwinn 10 speed that I bought for 10 bucks 17 years ago to a nice Trek 7300 hybrid bike. I love it. My friends and I have gone out for a couple of nice long rides together.

Recently friend C called me up to ask if I would join her on a road ride in March called the Cinderella Classic. Sure I said, tell me about it. She started reading the brochure, “The Cinderella Classic covers 65 scenic miles…”
“WHAT???!! Did you say 65 miles??”
“Sure – you can do that”
“I can?”
“Sure – it’s just a ride. It isn’t a race”
“Well, okay. sure”

And thus it has come to pass that on March 25 I am going to ride my pretty new bike 65 miles in a row with a couple of stops for food. What the hell a ride that length has to do with Cinderella is beyond me. I mean really, shouldn’t it be called the WonderWoman Classic?

Today was beautiful so I went out and took a 15 mile ride and it wasn’t any big deal. I guess that means I can handle 65 miles. I hope it does.