This ride meets a couple blocks from home, has a late-afternoon start and end before supper; and it gets me outta the house during the week to socialize at a time of year that I don't much care about being social. It's a nice, easy spin that works out the kinks in the legs and the brain. This past week, we arrived back at the parking lot after the ride with about a half hour until the next ride started up. As we chatted, an LBS shop ride was beginning to gather across the street.
I always feel a few pangs when I see a spirited ride readying--a shop ride used to be an easy one for me. I'm still amazed at the fitness a racer has in comparison to Joe Average Cyclist...even the mediocre racer class that I fell into. I still had the fitness for a few years after I quit racing and, while on shop rides, I enjoyed watching the shop-ride guys expend a ton of energy on a training ride. Knowing when to bank energy, knowing positioning and how to subtly push a shop-ride guy out into the wind were advantages I had, and I enjoyed playing a few games on the unsuspecting. They tended to be a bit amazed that a skinny girl could ride so strongly. It was partly that, of course, but it was also partly riding smart.
I like to think I've still got the smarts, but the riding strongly part? Not so much these days.
One of the women in our group looked over to the readying shop ride: Oh wow, there are a couple women on that ride.
Those aren't REAL women a guy in our group quipped. Normally, I'd have taken offense to the comment and flung some shyte at him: the insinuation that women athletes aren't totally feminine chaps my hide.
Instead, I looked over wistfully.
- The not so in shape Old Bag kinda missing being "not a REAL woman" this season
