A ride with Daniel

It is hard to believe that 30 years and 6 months separates us. At least for me. But it is true; my eldest nephew is 14 years old (going on 24). When he was a baby, I used to ride my bike to my folks for Thanksgiving and as soon as I would arrive (about 65 miles later), he would greet me at the door and put on my bike shoes and my helmet and toddle around.

Fast forward ahead and my bike shoes wouldn't fit on his big toe. He is now 6'1", 170lbs and wears a size 15 shoe! Anyway, when he sent me an email asking me about going for a bike ride while he was visiting, you can imagined how happy I was. I was able to find a friend about his height (I always imagined that if and when he wanted to ride a bike, that mine would work for him (ha!) ---soon, Mike's will work for him!)

I picked out a super cool Taylor-racing kit and headed over the hill to Truckee. Mike was going to ride over dirt Henness Pass road and meet us at Boca Reservoir. When we got to the pretty-dried up watering hole, Daniel got familiar with the shifting and off we rode. It was beautiful and cold. Clear and traffic free---and cold. Did I mention it was cold?

The roads were virtually traffic free---nothing but cyclists and a random car heading out to cut down a Christmas Tree. When we came to our first "hill", I instructed Daniel to downshift and he did----then he got out of the saddle and the effort combined with the altitude had him seated and out of breath pretty quickly. (His bike weighed twice as much as mine----rigid fork mountain bike with ultegra drivetrain). By this time, Mike had joined us, and we both vividly remember our introduction to riding at altitude, even with thousands of miles in our legs! Sigh!

Daniel didn't give up though and when the hills got too big he pushed his way up the hill. I was very proud! The cold air and altitude and new type of effort created a bit of asthma but he was fine and by the time we headed back he was rolling along and smiling. He was tired and when he said, "I can't believe how easy this is for you Joni", I said..."You get used to it! do you think you'll ever try this again D?" He smiled and said "Yup!" And like most 14 year olds--he's a man of few words. I won't write what we talked about---because it's just between us---but the time together made my Thanksgiving Day!

Happy Tuesday! (Thanks to my brother Rick for the picture!)