A few months ago, I decided to ride in the Tour de Cure, a bike event for the American Diabetes Association.  I wished my grandfather who loved riding and also had diabetes knew about this cause when he was alive because I would have LOVED to ride with him.

At first, I signed up for the 100 mile century ride. I started training doing several 30 mile rides and about a month before the event I decided I had no interested in riding 100 miles. I felt kind of like a weenie for backing down, but I’m privileged enough to work with Iron Man competitors, marathon crazies and overall excessive exercise folks.  They were instrumental in me realizing that I have no desire to go that far- I don’t want nor do I need a geared bike (which I would have for this ride), I didn’t have the time to train properly and safely – it just isn’t the time in my life for this distance.  Also training for and riding the 100 miles alone just didn’t really seem like something I was looking forward to.  I planned at first to train and ride with some friends, but life is busy so the training never happened together and to be honest I lost my mojo in pursuing this solo.

So I backed off the mileage to the easy 50 ride. It took place today and boy was it the right choice to ride 50km. I didn’t wear any special gear, no padded pants, no clips/shoes, no gears! I happily rode my favorite bike ever – Yoshi the KHS single speed I bought last year.  I’m so happy I rode for me and for the cause. Plus I rode 34 miles in 2:04! I was really happy with that. Plus I had lots of encouragement from other riders (as I passed them!) because they were blown away that I rode the ride with no gears!

I raised $620 – blowing my $200 goal out of the water!  So so happy with everyone’s generosity and kindness. Anyways, next year I think I’ll organize a group to join that are riding and training together, since it would have been even more fun to ride with some homies.