Never Say Never

Josie from Life On Two Wheels posted an article recently on How Bicycling Healed My Heart.

http://bikeleague.org/content/how-bicycling-healed-my-heart

I can relate to parts of her story.

She ends with:

"Riding was the one way that I could remind myself that I did have a "can do" attitude and that I could indeed accomplish things. 

For so long, I had told myself "you can't ride a bike," but I proved to myself that concept was wrong." 

Every year, watching the Tour de France and seeing other people with their bikes.  I always thought, I will never be a road cyclist.

If you asked me a year ago, do you think by next year you would be a road cyclist and commuting to work every day and road cycling 3-4 times a week (waking up at 5am)?

I would have said NO WAY, NEVER, ARE YOU CRAZY?

And I would have been wrong.

So now, every time I go to use the word "never" - like, "I will never do that", "I'm never doing that", I have to stop myself.

Because I could very well be wrong!

Getting back to normal. Tip of the day on Windproof vests.

So I did a bunch ride on Friday morning and went for a solo ride on Saturday afternoon and am feeling like I'm getting my confidence back.

(image via here)

One of the main things that helped was, a friend who has been riding for yonks and is someone I look up to in terms of cycling said:

"it always takes time to bounce back from a crash, especially if it has been a while. I crashed once while cornering and it took me over 3 months to put faith back into my bicycle and corner like a normal human again. If you're feeling fearful, think about all that you overcame to ride clipped in riding in traffic for the first time. 

Which was really great to hear.

Like, even though people have been riding for years and are super confident and almost perfect on the road, everyone has gone through what I'm going through now.

(Although people don't really talk about it - I guess it would scare the crap out of me if everyone warned me about this stuff).

So I'm getting there.

I was going to ride my commuter into the city, to try the William St -> Bourke St transition again...  But it was raining and I had too much stuff to do.  Maybe another day..

Wind vests

Windproof vests are great.

They can feel like a thin piece of plastic.  

Which feels like they couldn't possibly keep you warm.

But it's amazing how toasty you feel by just keeping the wind off your chest.

There's a lot of wind in cycling.

Note, you need a wicking layer underneath.  (Otherwise, you're just trapping the sweat - sweating in a plastic bag).

My major tip of the day is - find a windproof vest that has a back pocket, or has a cutaway so you can reach your jersey pockets.

This is super useful - saves you having to reach under your vest to get things.

I didn't realise until I got a second vest and I realised how useful pockets were!  

My husband explained about the cutaway (that's his vest on the right).

Left = pocket

Right = cutaway for reaching jersey pockets (cut is lower than the breathable back cutaway).

All these little things!

Loving learning about it all!