Lessons of a 50 Mile Bike Ride

One of my goals is to bike the entire length of the west coast from Seattle to Los Angeles along Highway 101, a journey over 1,000 miles.  I’ve never really given much consideration about how challenging this goal might be until I finally bought my bike and began riding.  I always thought that I would be able to put 100 miles behind me on a daily basis without so much as breaking a sweat.

Yesterday my girlfriend and I went on a bike ride with a few of our friends.  We had planned the trip to be about 38 miles.  On previous rides I had been able to average about 20 miles an hour or slightly less so we thought the ride would only take us a few hours.  Our estimation was way off for a variety of reasons.

We had planned on stopping in a small town where we would eat lunch and turn around to go back home.  As luck would have it, they no longer had any restaraunts or other places we could eat except for the gas station.  We decided to continue on to the next town 7 miles away.  Our 38 mile ride was now an extra 14 miles.

We also had people with us who had not been on a bike in years.  The expectations they had were different than reality.  The first ride I was on I thought it wouldn’t be any trouble at all, just get on the bike and pedal until you get there.  It isn’t so easy.  To the credit of all who rode with us, they did much better than I expected.  My first ride was 22 miles and I thought I was going to die by the time I was done.  This ride was much longer than that, and they did very well, much better than I had on my first ride.  After we had stopped to eat lunch the new riders decided this would be their final destination and loaded up their bikes and went home.

It was now my friend and I with a 23 mile ride in front of us.  We set out on the final stretch of our journey and were immediately greeted by a gale force wind directly in our faces.  We were pedaling hard, but making no ground.  A couple of miles more and we found ourselves at the base of the longest hill in the entire county.  With the wind in our face and the hill passing slowly beneath our feet we eventually made our way to the top, 45 minutes later.  The best part about climbing a hill is the reward you get coming down the other side.  It took us nearly an hour to climb the hill, but no more than 5 minutes to get back to the bottom of the other side.

The rest of the ride was plagued with wind and an aching knee.  For many miles I didn’t think I would be able to continue riding.  We stopped at a gas station 8 miles from our final destination and took a short break to stretch and relax.  The temperature was dropping and I was in shorts and a thin shirt.  We still had one hill between us and home and considered giving up.  We decided to push on.  We were nearly there and we would be rewarded by knowing that we had accomplished what we had set out to do.

When we arrived into town our girlfriends were waiting for us cheering us on.  That gave us the boost we needed to put the last mile behind us.  When we got home I was completely exhausted and could barely walk.  I’m not sure how I managed to pedal my bike.

From this experience I’ve learned that putting 100 miles behind me in one day is going to be a difficult challenge.  I do not feel that it is impossible but now I realize that it isn’t going to be as easy as I had originally thought.  I have a lot of preparation and practice ahead of me in order to get that distance on a daily basis.

I also learned never to give up.  No matter how challenging something is, if you keep trying, eventually you will accomplish what you set out to achieve.  We were faced with wind, cold, hills and knees that didn’t want to function but we overcame all of these obstacles and were able to finish our ride.

Maybe the most important thing that I took away from this trip is that no matter how slow the progress is, it is still progress.  Riding uphill into the wind is extremely slow.  You don’t get very far despite an incredible amount of effort being put forth.  If you stop working, even for a second, you cease any forward progress.  This lesson can be applied towards any goal, but especially goals dealing with money.

There are times when it seems like you are getting nowhere, like you are throwing your money into a black hole.  Your balances seem to drop by pennies each month.  I know I’ve been there, but I continued to work hard, no matter how slow the progress was, and I was able to eliminate my credit card debt as well as all of my other consumer loans and bills.  It isn’t easy and sometimes seems more work than what it is worth, but at the end when you have accomplished what you set out to do, you will find yourself proud of your accomplishment and the challenges and pains you experienced during the trip will be outweighed by your feeling of success.