Uncomfortable Change

My local gym in Beautiful Downtown Havana suddenly closed last Sunday.  I'd been a loyal customer for 11 years and was comfortable there.  I had my time and my little old man routines.  I had been there longer than anybody else and kinda had my turf staked out.  I enjoyed riding my bike to get there on Monday and Wednesday afternoon, plus the easy roll home was relaxing.  But stuff happens ya know?

So now I'm at the YMCA across from the Winn Dixie on north Monroe.  And I'm suddenly the newb.

The patrons do things differently here.  They don't remove their weights from the machines or barbells.  But they do wipe everything off after they're done.  There seems to be a bit more posing and flexing from the body builder crowd, and, except for me, it's not a particularly pretty bunch.

Anyhoo, it's something older dudes need to do, so I guess I'm here until something else opens up. Maybe I'll take a Yoga class.

Roadie

That's me in the background.  I have to photo bomb.

I've been hitting the Joe's road ride in Tallahassee these past couple of Thursday evenings.  Riding through the neighborhoods of Killearn at 6 pm is a little sketchy but over all I've grown to enjoy it.  I seem to have a mental block when it comes to all these roadie tactics so I always find myself in the wrong spot on the sprint.  Ape Bike will say "now why did you do----------?" and I just have to look at him with a vacant stare.  I don't know how something that should be so easy is so hard to figure out. Then again, maybe they're just messing with me.  Always a possibility with this group.

Saturday and Another Road Ride

The Kid wanted to do Saturday Morning Chaires and the rest of the crew was non committal as far as ride plans go, so I cajoled Dr. S Works into doing the Premier road ride from HG with me.  It was billed as a steady pace ride with mostly older riders.  Once again, either Roger was messing with me, or I must have missed something.

The roll out was smooth but as soon as we hit the open road the pace picked up, along with lots of orders being hollered.  We were supposed to go 70 miles but I knew I couldn't keep that kind of pace for long.  Fortunately the train stopped at the first store we came to.  Most of the "older" riders then took a shorter route back, along with Dr. S Works who was feeling sick and had to call for EVAC.  We left the store a much smaller group.

How long to pull?  When does the group go harder?  Who will just sit in?  Do we wait when people get dropped?  How about a double pace line?  Do we even want to do a pace line at all?  I'm so confused.

I hope I didn't insult anybody.  It was a good workout.  I plan to do it again.

Ride For Hope

It's this coming Saturday.  I had tried to get a group together to make the 100 miles pleasant but it's not looking good.  I'll let you know how it goes.