Tour de SOHOE: Part Deux. In which I swallow flies and a little pride

The second day. Conditions were favourable and Bil had done some needed tweaking to the bits and pieces that needed tweaking, so off we went for a 'short' ride. Please keep in mind, dear Reader, that at this time, I had been on a bike three times in roughly twenty years.


Bil took the lead, pulling Four and Five in the rickshaw; J and I took our places, following meekly behind. He led us out to the country which is about two streets away, and off we headed to the next little town over. What a beautiful day it was! The sun shone, birds twittered, cattle lowed, fields were plowed, and there were very few cars. Or hills.


The bike seat at this point was mildly uncomfortable, but I was distracted in equal measure with figuring out how to adjust the gears appropriately and realizing just how great it was to be close enough to what I was seeing to appreciate it and yet moving quickly enough to be able to see a lot compared to the slower pace of walking.


We saw horses and cows and a dog basking in the sun. There were trees in bloom and a family sowing seeds of a sort and covering them over with long stretches of plastic. There were doggy spas and a sod farm. And there were flies. I swallowed two along that stretch of road, but I was charmed by my surroundings and congratulated myself on my fortitude.


I began to realize however, that further tweaking was needed - the handle bars were still too far forward, I couldn't find just the right place to put my feet on the pedals, the seat needed to be higher, and oh-my-goodness a whole lot softer!

We had gone a respectable distance when Bil asked if we wanted to turn back, or continue on into town, doing the complete loop. I certainly didn't want to wimp out at that point, and figured I could keep pushing those pedals around for a while yet, so I said, "Go!" At which point I found out that there were hills ahead of us. The long, slow, deadly kind. I think I swallowed another fly.

Town was broached and again I was charmed by my surroundings. Bil informed me we were halfway through the course at which point I began to feel rather grim, but still determined to make it home with grace and dignity intact if a little worse for wear in my sit bones region. The ride in had gone rather smoothly, I reassured myself, so surely it would be just fine on the way back.

Ha. Have you ever tried riding a bike into gale force winds? I'm not sure what the knottage (that is how they measure wind, isn't it?) was that day, but let me tell you, it felt pretty knotty with half the distance still to go before I could get off that very hard, very unforgiving seat. I would lift myself up onto my feet when possible, and otherwise shift incessantly, trying to ease the great discomfort I was now unable to ignore in my hind quarters. I put my head down, gritted my teeth and thought about getting off the bike, collapsing into the ditch and praying for enough rain to allow me to float home.

By this point, the cows and fields and flowers had lost their power to enchant me. I began to realize that trees and farms are perfectly visible from the windows of a car, so I had undertaken this venture under false pretenses. I'd been conned with the idea of rolling gently through a bucolic idyll, enjoying the sun and fresh air. Balderdash! Cows be darned... my hiney was hurting!

J and Bil took it in turns to lead the way, and every now and then they would slow down, requiring me to take my tongue firmly between my teeth or I would have snapped at them. At that point I had one goal and one speed: forward and fast - I wanted off that bike! I would sometimes snarl a little because that seemed to provide some extra oomph, but that allowed yet another fly to fly into my mouth. I would try to align myself exactly behind the leader in an effort to cut down the wind resistance, but I think I proved that is a cooked-up theory by some ergonomic/aerodynamic product placement people. I may as well have been riding down the middle of the road all by myself for the difference it made.

Just when I thought we must surely be getting very nearly close to home, J called back over her shoulder to Bil to ask if the approaching road was the one we turned onto. He replied with the usual Why Chromosome response, "What?" which sent me right over the edge. I imagined we would all have to get off our bikes and have a huddle to discuss our route and there was just no way that once off, I was going to plant my bottom back on that seat again. So I shrieked at him, "Do we take X Street or do we stay on Z Road?" He thought that was amusing but I just wanted to clobber him. Not long after, we had to cross a fairly busy road to enter our neighbourhood. A woman had just pulled out of her driveway in her car, and seemed to be going really slowly. I shrieked at her too, to encourage her to hurry up so the insane woman having a meltdown on the bike wouldn't have to stop, thereby ending the torture, only to have to climb back onto that seat yet again.

There was no stopping me at that point. I zipped past Bil and the Peanuts in their rickshaw, propelled forward by the picture of our front lawn. It has a lovely, gentle slope down to the driveway - perfect for someone who wants to fall off her bike and lay down for a very long time. I could see it happening in my mind's eye over and over again, like Bridget Jones sliding down the fireman's pole. It was the imagined slide off the seat that had me racing around the last corner, and chugging down the last stretch until at last the house was in view.

Instead of landing on the grass though, I simply got off the bike and willed my foot to push down the kickstand and stood for a while in the driveway. I didn't collapse on the grass, because I wasn't all that sure that once prone, I would ever get up again. I certainly didn't want to be sitting on anything and I was hoping to prove I had a little dignity left, flies and shrewish behaviour and all.

We went 16.2 kms that day. A very respectable distance, I'd say, for a novice cyclist. Unfortunately Nature has conspired against me, as it has been very windy and rainy since that day, and by now my imagination has turned that bicycle seat into a very narrow, very hard plank of wood, perfectly designed to inflict the greatest discomfort possible. I'm thinking for the next ride I'll bungee cord a sofa cushion to my tuchie.