I've just gotten back to riding after a long absence. After not having ridden since grade school, my boyfriend bought me a mountain bike for Valentine's Day back in 1999. I trained on it for a couple of months in preparation for a trip we were taking to England which included two days of biking. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't get hooked. A couple years later, he wanted to do another bike trip, so I got back into training. We rode the Ring of Kerry in Ireland. A LOT of fun and incredibly beautiful; resulted in a billion beautiful pictures and memories. But again, as soon as we got home, the bike went back into storage.

It wasn't until the price of gas hit $3 that it occurred to me that the bike might be useful for something other than the occasional vacation. I started training so that I could use it for errands and exercise. It's harder now, because I live at the top of a very, very steep hill and while going down is lovely, getting home is a pain in the behind.

But that was just about two months and 11 pounds ago. I'm slowly building up speed and endurance, and spending a little less on gas. I did my first group ride about a month ago, and am planning to do my longest ever (about 50 miles) next Saturday.

And I'm inspiring my boyfriend -- we've started talking about our next trip. Not sure where yet...