Nervous Nelly Rides a Bike

As I drove home from work Tuesday night, mentally preparing myself for my home workout, I whined a little bit about having to get on the bike trainer. After Sunday’s gorgeous ride it was hard to imagine riding in my living room. I got changed, had my snack and set up the living room when Michael walked in the door and said, “Let’s go for a bike ride!”

“Okay!” YAY! No bike trainer! He had an hour-long loop we could do together and since it was such a nice, warm day in Portland it was hard not to take advantage of that.

Confession: I’m a nervous bike rider when it comes to riding on the road. I’m not used to riding with traffic, it makes me super nervous and I’d much prefer a rural road or bike trail. When we were training for Reach the Beach last year we rode around Portland a lot. I got more comfortable with road riding but since it’s been so long since we rode around the city I was nervous last night.

PLUS: it was rush hour. We left our house at 5:30pm and headed out. We had to cross a busy highway and ride on some neighborhood streets that don’t have bike lanes. There was a funky 6 way-intersection with so many weird turn lanes that we had to get in the actual lane in front of a car while we waited for the light to change. I was really anxious because we had to cross train tracks, immediately go up a steep hill and go fast enough that the cars weren’t annoyed behind us. Pressure! I made it up the hill, panting and out of breath, and then we were in bike lanes again.

We rode through neighborhood streets and then connected to the Springwater Corridor.

I was able to relax a bit once we were on the trail. Something that Portland does pretty well is create a lot of bike lanes throughout the city. It really is a good cycling city and somehow I need to get over my Nervous-Nelly ways so I can enjoy it!

We rode down the trail into Sellwood and then left the Springwater and picked up another neighborhood bike lane. We rode through downtown Milwaukie. The sun was out and it was warm. In fact, I’d overdressed for my ride. It’s hard to gauge with biking though.

We made it home with the loop completed in 58 minutes! It was a great ride for after work and I am SO happy that the weather is cooperating and the sun is out much later in the evening.

Bike Stats:

Time: 58
Calories Burned: 437

We made dinner together: spicy bratwursts with grilled zucchini. I added a little herbed goat cheese to the zucchini.

I had a sip of Michael’s beer. Only the good stuff in our house! (Check out Marie’s awesome letter to Miller Light. I agree 100%!)

Dinner was quick and easy and the perfect thing for after a bike ride. I think the trick to getting over my nervousness is to just do it more. I noticed that I wasn’t sore on the bike too, I think riding on the trainer all winter has helped a LOT! Focusing on my core this winter too has kept me from experiencing back pain or neck pain on the bike too.

Since we went for a bike ride, I missed out on the #fitblog chat. I’d been looking forward to it because the questions sounded so interesting (will talk about them tomorrow).

Enter Giveaway Here!

QUESTION: What’s your favorite way to take advantage of the lighter evenings? And are you a nervous rider? How do you get over it?