My butt hurts

Well, I've completed my third "real" training ride on my new bike. Amazingly, I didn't fall off this time. I managed to ride 12 km in 30 minutes, not as quick as I had hoped, but one has to understand where I ride.
Firstly, I live in rural Western Australia. Really rural. The road I train on is as my daughter tells me "dead". Even down hill, you need to pedal. Sure you can coast, but not far. The first part of my ride is all uphill, about 4 km. Holly would tell me that the road is "essentially flat", but when you are a fat old fart like me, any hill is a hill. It is nice to go down hill on the last half of the ride.

I wanted to go farther, but I'm still getting used to the seat. It's like sitting on a broom stick, but a broomstick is probably softer. Even with knicks it's still a bit hard, but I'm getting used to it - slowly.

So, to recap, what have I learned so far?
1. Unclip your feet before you stop lest you look like an idiot laying in the middle of the road.
2. Little teeny-weeny stones kicked up by the tyres do hurt when they hit you in the neck.
3. Ride with teeth clenched. Bugs down the throat can seriously ruin your ride. It's really hard to sprint while gacking on a fly that's dancing on your tonsils.
4. Pee before you go riding.

5. Lastly, any extra weight you carry is a handicap. This is something I should have known, but picture this: How fast could Lance armstrong ride if he was carrying 40 one-litre water bottles?

If I can lose 20 kilos, I'll be VERY happy. BTW, I have lost 5 already.

That's it for now. Where's my pillow to sit on?

The new bike

Well, I was going to rebuild an old Ricardo bicycle that I found on the trash heap, but things got too hard. I got ao good deal on this Avanti Giro from Fleet Cycles, and what the heck, I figured it was time to learn to ride again.

This is my first bike with clip on pedals, which proved interesting on my first ride. I thought I'd see how good my training on the exercise bike was going and if it was helping me in the real world. I have been managing 10 km in about 23 minutes and last week when I tried to compare the ride on my mountain bike, I thought I was going to die. My legs were dead at the end of the first kilometre. The Giro however, is very nice. I practiced the clipping and un-clipping a couple times before riding off and knew what to do so I wasn't fussed.

Up the road I went and the bike is really fantastic to ride. The first 3 km of my ride is a gentle uphill but it was relatively effortless. At the top of the hill I turned around and really motored down hill back to my ute. I got up to about 38 km/h and it was really nice to be able to ride like this in the real world, not just pedaling while watching t.v.

I pulled up to my ute and unclipped my RIGHT foot, came to a stop and tried to put my LEFT foot down. SHIT!!!

Anyway, I landed on the road, scrapping my knee, bruising my elbow (and ego) but was not too hurt. I put a couple scratches on the new bike but didn't break anything, thankfully. Falling off at 0 km/h is much better than those guys in the TdF at 40+.

Next ride I practice getting on and off without blood.