It’s a biathlon today – hike then bike! Our first bike ride together since we moved here – thanks to Sammy’s first babysitter (other than Gramma, whom he sees as more of a nice plush toy than a babysitter!). My friend Heidi’s daughter (Holly) watched Sam for two hours while we went out and rode about 14 miles (just a short one for starters until I get used to skinny tires again!). There are few hills around here, but we bagged all of them that were available. It felt nice to pump the legs. I am one of the few weirdos out there who love going uphill and dread downhill. I actually had to look at my bike computer several times to be sure of this, but I rode faster UP hill than down. (Jenni – you will laugh at this – I actually hit 19.5 mph going UP and only went 18.5 DOWN – I’m not a big racer like you! ha ha!). I get freaked out by the speed on those little tires with glass and rocks and wind out there to really mess me up. It was so fun to be on the Bianchi again. The ride is like you’re gliding through warm butter. Dave had the bike all cleaned up and ready for me to hop on so all I had to do was get Sam squared away for his playtime with Holly.

The whole ride went well until we headed back the short 1 mi from Lanikai Juice, where we got lunch. I am a total nut in traffic. I have no confidence at all amidst all those cars. So I ended up biking down a super busy street because I couldn’t manage to turn left at the intersection. This meant I had to somehow turn left in the middle of moving traffic further down the road. Then, I had to dive out into traffic the first chance I got, but in my frantic and decisive state, I ended up signaling out into traffic WAY too soon – like two blocks too soon. To cover up for this latest blunder, I decided that I should just match speed with the traffic. This meant going 25 mph. That doesn’t seem like a lot for a car, but it’s a lot for a bike! I just hauled arse with Dave watching in amusement (and gasping trying to keep up I imagine, because I’m SUCH a stud). I finally turned left, just before a car coming the other way (because no WAY was I going to overshoot the turn after all that work, not to mention I can’t go slow on skinny tires like I can on my mountain bike – I’d fall over). To spare you any further pain as you sift through this longwinded story – I ended up turning onto the sidewalk, got slowed down by grass when I ran out of sidewalk and managed to work our way home without further incident.