My sister is kind of overweight; not huge but needs to loose some poundage. She bought a recumbant bike (a nice one) after deciding that it hurt too much to ride a single bike; but she still isn't riding too much. Here's a letter I wrote her today. Maybe it will inspire some of you newbies out there.
Dear Sister
A few weeks ago; you asked me, "how do you do it (long bike rides)?" and on my two rides in Corvallis this weekend I thought
a lot about that; because I can remember thinking that more than 5 miles was boring and no fun at all.
well, first you have to build up enough strength so that it isn't shear agony to be on the bike for more than
10 miles at a time. Those were the longest rides that I have done. It seemed to take forever to get 5 miles down the road and back.
I longingly looked at a tree in the distance and thought; when I get there, I will be so much closer. then at the next tree.
"if i can just get to that tree, it will be a giant success"
I actually employed this method all the way to Portland on the STP ride.
Once you get strong enough that you can do a 25 mile ride or so, then you can start to really have fun.
There are lots of bike club rides where you ride to a rest stop where they serve you fruits, sandwiches, water,
sports drinks and even potato chips. At the start line, the rest stops and the finish line (where there is also food
and often an icecream social) there is much socializing; admiring bikes, bike colors, and outfits.
It is such a great feeling to get to the first rest stop! (there are toilets too!)
Nowadays, since i have graduated to bigger rides what i do is fractions. everyone has their own system of course;
but for example, we rode 70 miles on saturday. the first 7 miles just flew by and i thought;
wow! 10% of the ride is done! at mile 25 was our first rest stop, do the math, that was over 33% of the way to the end!
As you get hot and tired towards the end, the last 20 miles might seem like an eternity; but you can break them up too
the same way. almost 90% there. almost 95% there.
If you ride on organized rides, there is also lots of conversation, sometimes rather fleeting, as the
faster riders pass you they always say hi (well, not ALWAYS) but there is lots of social interaction
and this provides endless entertainment, as do the houses and farms and farm animals we pass along the way.
Most of the time, it gets to be more and more fun.
A big topic of conversation at the ride this weekend was "Did you see Sam and Sue?" "can you believe how much better they
look this year than last year?" "yeah, they sure lost a lot of weight!"
More and more people are being attracted to bike riding because it's a low stress way of getting fit. I hope you and your husband
look into some organized rides in your area soon because one of the things I discovered was that your neighborhood is one of the most bike friendly places I have ever ridden in. (we were in Corvallis, Philomath, Alpine, and surrounding areas)
So how lucky is that for you?
