I had the day off work on Friday, so though I had it off to run a bunch of errands, I was able to do a ride in the middle of a sunny day which was great. I decided to attack Grizzly Peak on my own. Grizzly had a lot of mystique when we first moved to Berkeley, as in, “One day we’ll be good enough to do Grizzly Peak… oooh… aahhh.” But now we’ve done it a couple of times and it’s not actually bad at all. I hadn’t done it in a while though and never alone and I forgot that the hard part is actually getting up Spruce to Grizzly Peak. Toughed that out and then was working on catching some recreational bikers way ahead of me when another biker came up next to me. I thought he was just going to say hi and move on, but it turned out he wanted bike together (evident as he continued onversation). That was fine with me to have some company and he decided he’d bike a little further than he planned to show me the best way down Grizzly.
That brings me to why I don’t do Grizzly all the time – I haven’t found a way down that doesn’t scare the crap out of me. I’m a real sissy on steep downhills. I love a good downhill on a wide unbumpy road that you can really zoom down, I HATE downhills that I have to use my brakes the whole time in order to not end up going 60mph at which speed if I hit one crack wrong I’d fly off my bike. So there’s a good downhill when you’ve reached the top of Grizzly. I knew this guy would cruise ahead of me, but I was having more trouble controlling my breaks than usual, which seemed weird. I thought maybe I’m becoming even more of a sissy than before! Anyway, he waited for me at the bottom, we did some more climbing and then it was time for the real descent. It was steep and it was hairpin turns and I could NOT get my brakes to do what I wanted them to. I was coming around corners and they were not responding and I was sure that I was going to slide out. This poor guy probably waited 10 minutes for me at the bottom thinking I had a flat or something because it took me so long to get down the hill and I was petrified the entire time.
When I got back to Berkeley, I had a little time to kill before picking Kyle up so I rode over to the bike shop to see if they could tell me what was up with my brakes. I told the guy, “I think my brakes are wearing out,” and he looks at my bike and is like, “Well, you know you have to have this down right?” Dammit. The little tab you put down after you put your front wheel on. That entire ride I didn’t have my front brakes fully engaged, which, yes, I’ve done by accident before but usually realize it a mile down the road. I have no idea why I didn’t think of that when I was having trouble braking. I was humiliated. And I have no idea how I made it down those hills alive.
Saturday, I did long run to the dog park and Kyle picked me up. Later in the day, I finally got to the pool. Swam 200 warm up, 1500 straight, 200 cool down.
Sunday, brick workout. My ride went a bit too long - 95 minutes instead of 75 minutes, so I had to cut my run short to 20 minutes so that I could make it to an appointment. Good workout though.
No comments:
Post a Comment