What got you into biking?

[WindingRoad]

Life Crisis. Yeah that's what prompted me to start riding. I had ended an eleven year relationship, become very unhealthy and was at the jumping off point pretty much. Not to mention I had just moved to a large city and wasn't comfortable with that yet, see I'm from a very small town, people scary. Ironically by some twist of fate, I ended up in a bike shop. It was the same bike shop I went to as a kid with my mom and dad so there was always the 'happy' effect when I went there. I was just skulking around the showroom floor and reminiscing in my mind when the owner approached me and started asking me about what I wanted. I had no idea but somehow I ended up trying out a Giant OCR3 road bike. I rode in around the parking lot and it was strange how quickly I felt at home on that bike. Guess it reminded me of my old twelve speed Rally I had when I was a kid. Whatever it was it made me happy when I rode it. It was expensive for me at the time so I had to make a few payments before it was officially mine to take home. I came to 'visit' it and ride it around the parking lot a few times in the meantime. They probably thought I was completely mad thinking about this now . I finally paid it off and brought it home. I think I stared at it in the living room for the first three days because it looked so cool, LOL. Somewhere along the journey I discovered this new thing called "group rides". After battling the urge to chicken out as I had done numerous other times, one morning I actually went to one of these rides and met some really nice people. I rode that bike over 2,000 miles the summer of 2006 on group rides and had so much fun, made new friends and got in incredible shape. It truly was one of the greatest times in my life. I had regained my physique, my courage and a social life. I'm very grateful for the nice people in my local cycling club they have no idea what they did for me that summer.