I rode today with a total newbie to road riding. She bought a hybrid about 10 years ago to ride with her daughter. Well, she has a cyclist boyfriend now and she asked me to help her buy a road bike. That was easy enough. Then we went out for a ride today. She was a total trooper. I planned a 25 mile ride based on the fact that she said she had riden up to 20 miles on her hybrid. I think her mileage estimates must have been off a bit. We headed out on a gentle uphill route with a head wind, oops. But she stuck to it for 10 miles. Then I had to decide. Did I want to push through or would we turn around and go back. To push through the loop would've meant a bigger hill and an extra 5 miles in total. I decided she looked a little ragged and we turned back. We burned down the hill with the wind at our backs the whole way and she had a grin the size of Texas when we got back to the cars. She's totally pumped about going out again next weekend.

Meanwhile I feel like I didn't deserve the chocolate bar at the end of the ride. That's OK. It was all worth it to bring another rider into the fold.