Wild Times

I love going Negaunee. I visit a friend who is more like a sister to me. People are usually quite curious about what we’re up to. A girl’s weekend? They must be partying!

For several years, people would ask us in that “you’ve been doing something crazy, I know it” tone, “What did YOU two do today?

“Oh, it’s funny. We went to Munising to get Dairy Queen, buy lottery tickets, and then we went to Chatham and loaded hay on the truck. It’s hay day!” That’s usually when we get a weird look. That’s usually not the response someone expects from two women hanging out.

I met Sandee when I began the clinical work for my degree in Marquette. One day, I went out to see her horses and the rest is history. I’ve always had horses and it was a common interest. We started getting together somewhat frequently to snowshoe, open a bottle of wine, and have girl chat. For a reason unknown, Thursday ended up being the most convenient day to do this. It was never planned, but that’s the day girl chat fell on. When I moved away, girl chat changed to the occasional weekend. It was one of those girl’s weekends when I first brought the cross bike down from Houghton. So much snow had already melted, and I brought the cross bike to test it on the roads in Negaunee Township.

It was an interesting ride. It was the first time I’ve ridden my Jake. After almost a year of mountain biking, the Jake felt like there was barely any bike there. I was worried that it just couldn’t hold up. I was worried about crashing.

The beginning of the ride was incredibly interesting. Sandee’s driveway exits onto a hill, and you have to go uphill to get out of her road. I turned uphill, decided to shift gears, pressed the only lever I could find for my cogs, and it shifted into a harder gear. That wasn’t good. “How the heck do you shift this thing into an easier gear?” I was getting quite frustrated. I only saw one lever.

I called my bike shop and talked with Caleb. “Caleb, I can shift it into a harder gear, but I can’t figure out how to shift it into an easier gear. I’m going uphill, so this isn’t really a good thing.”

“Um, ok, let me think about how your bike shifts for a minute.”

“Ok.”

“Ok, with your bike, press the brake lever in. I think that’s how it shifts.” I pressed the brake lever in. It shifted! Wahoo, I could go for a ride! With that, I hung up my phone and proceeded to take my first road ride.

Shortly after that, I fell in with Arlyn and Sandy, two masterful tandem riders. They will ride anything! You should see them on a mountain bike. They take things with ease that scares the be-you-know-what out of other people. My spring and early summer consisted of several road rides with them and my friend, Pat. The three of them taught me road skills, skills that still need work to this day, nevertheless, skills that have benefited me as you’ll see in future posts.

The frustration I had with riding with them was that I was out of shape and much slower, especially on hills. Some hills would just kill me. By the time I would get to the top of a hill, they would already have more than adequate rest and be ready to proceed as I broke out a goo or took a swig of my beverage. The rides didn’t always consist of chasing them, though. We often rode together while chatting about whatever. Road riding was a social event, and it was one I was developing quite an appreciation for.