First Ride

I'm always anxious over my first road-bike ride.

I don't know if it's because I'm worried that something might have happened to my bike while it hung, upside-down, from the ceiling in our garage. I'm worried that the tires or tubes cracked, that the brakes are faulty, or that something's come loose.

Of course, the bike is fine. Before I hang it up for the winter, I always give it a good cleaning. Sometimes, I even take it to the shop for a professional tune-up (they tend to be less busy at the end of the season than in the spring).

I worry that I'm not up to riding any great distance. My belly has come back (I'm eating way to much sugar and junk food these days) and maybe I'll run out of steam halfway into my ride.

My biggest concern for this first ride was how my body would cope as I recover from COVID. But I've done a couple of spin rides, in my bedroom, since the illness knocked me out, and I was fine.

I also worried about the road conditions. Would there be a lot of debris on the shoulders? Would my tires find a piece of glass or metal?

I worry about my first ride until I actually do it, which is what I did after work, yesterday. April 6 is the earliest I've ever been out on my road bike. It's been just under five months since I last got on my bike.

I chose the route that I did the most often, last year. It's a 40-kilometre circuit that takes me down to Kars and back, passing through Manotick on the return leg. Typically, there are parts of this ride where there is little traffic and the road conditions are good, if not ideal.

It was good to see that the roads hadn't taken a beating from the winter and I remembered and anticipated parts where the shoulder was a bit rough. And while there was a lot of dirt and stones on the sides of the road, I encountered no broken glass or other hazardous debris.

Even the drivers gave me a wide berth when they passed me. Perhaps it was because I had one of my 360-degree cameras mounted to my handle bars and it extended to my left-hand side, making it visible to oncoming vehicles.

No one wants to misbehave when they think they're being recorded. (I only turned it on when I was negotiating busy spots along my route.)

The only problem that I had with yesterday's ride, besides some nasty wind gusts that came from the east, was with my Garmin watch. The GPS screwed up and gave an incorrect account of my route. It had me starting somewhere in Goulbourn and ending somewhere in the empty fields behind the movie theatre at Barrhaven's RioCan mall.

No, I did not ride my bike on the Rideau River, no matter what the map shows.

It also recorded 43.16 kms and this route is usually just over 40 kms (under 41).

Shortly after my ride, I started coughing, which I haven't done since the weekend. I was a bit tired but no more than I usually feel after a long ride.

I slept like a baby.

So I would say that my first road-bike ride of 2022 was a success. I was dressed appropriately and was comfortable. I had a slow pace but I was steady. I need to get more rides like this in, soon, because I'm participating in the CN Cycle for CHEO on May 1, which is a 70-km ride.

I'm up for it.

And I'm no longer anxious about getting on my bike.