Unfortunately, I picked it up after work, prior to the rainstorms and wasn’t able to really ride my bike until this last weekend.   Between long work days and my Army Reserve drill on the following weekend - sometimes it is hard to fit in the fun of getting away from it all.

So my adventure began last Saturday evening.  I filled up my bottle of water and strapped on my helmet, with the idea of going tens of miles before the evening was through.   I started my trek at the Liberty High School buildings, biking around seeing the facility.   I thought I might see many more people exercising, since it was a relatively nice night outside.   I only spotted a couple of women walking on the running track - and thought the facilities might be empty because of the Chief’s preseason game with the Miami Dolphins.     As I found out later after I got back, I really don’t think that played much of a part because the game turned out to be a total bust with the Chiefs.   

After testing the capabilities of my bicycle in the large, empty parking lot I decided to test my skills on the mean streets of Liberty.   I pumped away, down Liberty Drive, on the relatively flat roadway, enjoying a really nice park and several housing developments along the way.   I was always leery of the street traffic speeding past me, even with the “beware of bicycle traffic” signs (there are plenty of bikers on the weekday, I’m sure, because this is one of the main drags to the high school).   I never really had a problem with any of the cars, and several merged almost onto the other lane to pass by me.

I turned with Liberty Drive towards towards the major route cutting through Liberty, 291 highway.   I began going up and down several larger hills and remembered that it had been a couple of years since I had ridden last.   My thoughts of riding several tens of miles began to dwindle with more hills.  I began subtracting the miles to go during my need to get off the bike and walk it up the hills, just to get a little bit of a break.  

After gulping down half of my water bottle, I decided that maybe I should return back to home, rather than continue on this route and be completely dehydrated.    On my way back, I realized also that one of the reasons I was so winded was I was traveling for the most part up hill.   The trip back home was, of course much faster.   I discovered that going uphill required different gears, then going downhill.   When I got back to the flat terrain on Liberty Drive, my legs told me that I had made a wise decision to turn back.

Getting back to my home, I decided to take my next adventure on flatter ground and literally work my way up gradually.   I have also been looking in the stores and found a new ergonomic seat that I think would be better for my behind.   More happy biking trail stories ahead!