Going on a bike ride

Today's 10-mile ride (I didn't turn on my app until we were well into the ride)

Checking off one more new thing that we've never done together, this morning, Dick and I rented bicycles and went on a 10-mile ride!

Dick has been considering purchasing a bike to ride to work on (in the months with when it's daylight during his commute time, and not raining). His work is about 6 miles away by bike, which is about 3 miles of city riding, and 6 miles on a bike trail. We thought it would be a good idea to rent some bikes (and helmets) and do a test run.

I think Dick and I rented bikes once around Golden Gate Park sometime in the last 10-12 years, and it was just for a couple of miles. Other than that, I'm pretty sure I haven't been on a bike since high school, and even that wasn't very often.

So, it was a new adventure for both of us! There's a great bike store in Downtown Bellevue, about a mile from our house that rents bikes. We went this morning, got all our gear, and headed out. I started my Walkmeter App (in bicycle mode) closer to where our apartment is, just so Dick could get an idea of how far his ride to work would be.

The ride was pretty good. The city miles were full of stops and starts, since we followed the rules of the rode, and didn't ride like maniacs who don't. Once we were on the bike trail, I was a lot more happy. There were two pretty long hills going towards Redmond, that were fairly tiring. Unfortunately, we were also fairly stupid, and didn't think to bring water with us. Actually, since I always carry water, it's not that I didn't think of it. It's more that we didn't know how we would old it, and if we would really need it. That was silly. It's was a pretty warm morning, and we were sweating and were getting dehydrated. Dick was also pretty wiped out physically when we hit mile 4 or so (after the longest hill). We stopped off at a Burger King, got some water, and took a rest. He decided he was ready to ride home from there. I'm pretty sure that if we had brought water, we would have been okay going the full 6-miles, as we checked out the rest of the trail, and it was relatively flat.

The way back to Bellevue was MUCH easier - clearly, we really needed the water break, plus there was only one hill going up on the way back, and it was much shorter.

Anyway, it was a good experiment. Dick has also been looking into e-Bikes, and we're thinking that may be the way for him to go. It'll give him extra assistance up the hills, and will help build his stamina. Stay tuned.

Oh - one more thing: I have lots of friends on Facebook who ride bikes at very long distance. I don't know how they do it - my tush was sore after the first 3 miles! :)


Dick and his rental bike during our rest stop


Dick also test rode a couple of more bikes once we were back at the shop