This is not X-treme...

Goooooooooood morning.

My arms hurt. They don't just hurt a little. They hurt a lot. Whenever you start a new workout regimen, any coach will tell you to take it easy in the beginning. It is important to build up your level of effort in any activity over time, so as not to do any damage to your body.

Dr. Einstein thought he'd been doing this. I'd been riding the single speed for 8 or 9 months now. I've been doing strength training through yoga and even a little in the weight room. Let me just say that all that preparation was woefully inadequate to prepare me for the level of effort it took to ride the tandem last night. It didn't help that the first ride totalled almost three hours, that there wasn't a 30 second span of time when I wasn't wrestling 370 pounds of J (Jason or Julian depending on who was on the bike), myself and bike around corners, across ravines, through creeks or over logs. I was having too much fun to care.

That activity makes it sound like we did something worthy of the X-games or something. It was just a ride. It was something I'd love to repeat week after week for the rest of my life. That isn't X-treme. It is just being alive. :D

I'll let my web site post tell the rest of the story. It has photos too. Jason shot video. That will be interesting and cool if it turns out.

http://myroadtrips.peterbeers.net/mbrt/4Accotink-Wakefield/2005-02-03_Tandem-Night/Wakefield-tandem.htm

Jason was amazing on his first tandem ride. He handled the bad conditions and new riding style with aplomb. (don't you just love that word? I want to type it again... aplomb) Julian was his normal self. That means that he was superhuman strong while being completely neutral on the bike. While I'm feeling like I've got a bull by the horns up front, he is pedaling away in back, remaining centered on the bike, powering us out of trouble, and somehow interpreting the weird noises coming out of my mouth into instructions for how to help get the bike over the obstacle in front of us. Our communication was perfect last night. That amazed me and is a credit to his ear and brain.

What is on the MP3 player right now? 3 Doors Down -- "Away from the Sun".

Talk to y'all soon. I need to relax my arms a bit.

Pete