Oy, now what have I done?

"Oy, now what have I done?"

Those words, often overlooked over the centuries, are exactly what Caesar uttered just after crossing the Rubicon.

Maybe you get the idea already that in the last few days, as I have started to do more than leisurely biking, I have had some doubts about where this whole thing may end up. I shouldn't be surprised by the fact that propelling my body even on a fine machine such as my Roubaix (I love saying Roubaix) across " long distances" and especially up hills is simply not an easy task. Come to think of it, this hill thing really doesn't make sense. If I were to set down a heavy object, say a 200-pound yam, on Page Mill Road it would be extremely difficult to push up the hill from Peter Coutts Road to Foothill Expressway. Moreover, if it were very round--and mind you, I never took physics, but--it seems to me the force of gravity would tend to send the yam hurtling down Page Mill halfway to El Camino Real. So what's the logic that encourages people to sit on two round wheels and think going up the hill is even possible? This has crossed my mind more than once this week.

This should not have come as a surprise. It wasn't so different when I was testing bikes and taking them up steep inclines. True, some bikes made the grade easier than others, but there wasn't a single one at any price upon which when I reached even a modest summit I did not find my legs burning and my lungs heaving. Now that I have my very own bicycle and a commitment to go ever-increasingly challenging distances and heights, I do wonder, "Oy, now what have I done?"

I suppose it is common to have this chatter in the mind constantly questioning the merit of one's undertakings.

I have done a reasonable job of pushing aside some of the not unreasonable fears of sharing the road with two- and three-ton machines hurtling along at speeds often four or five times faster than my own. The recent headlines about the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Deputy whose cruiser crossed the double yellow line and drove head-on into three cyclists is sufficient to give one pause to consider the dangers out there. And when experiencing what well may be considered the reward for climbing a hill--the opportunity to then speed down the other side--it has immediately occurred to me that there is some inherent risk here as well. Thirty mile an hour with no steel cage or seat belt wrapped around me--well that's different. But risks aside, when I find myself struggling along, as I did peddling the 9.4 miles to shul yesterday, I can't imagine what transformation will have to occur to allow me to accomplish 300 miles through the desert.

Getting to shul really wasn't all that bad. I tooled across Palo Alto's Bryant Street Bicycle Boulevard--pretty flat. Headed up University Avenue onto Palm Drive of the Stanford campus. Cut across the back of the shopping center to Sand Hill Road. Hung a right at Santa Cruz where one car seemed a little uncertain whether to brake or mow me down as I merged left onto Alameda de las Pulgas. This is a route that avoids any really big climbs, It has its ups and downs--overall a steady rise. Not too bad. It was a cool day. It took around 45 minutes--about the same as the circuit I have ridden for years from my house around the Baylands path. Definitely more of a climb than presents itself at the edge of the bay.

A few hours later, after answering the rabbi's request to facilitate a thorny meeting with parents from the religious school, I headed home. Since the return was overall more downhill than up I was a little surprised when I found myself running out of gas about halfway. Then again fuel may have been the issue. One thing I think I need to learn more about is just what to eat, how much, and when, in order to keep the furnace inside me cranking. Fortunately I had a power bar to give me a boost.

I took a different route home which included going down the Page Mill hill. Bummer that I hit a red light at the bottom instead of using my momentum to keep on gliding. Gotta figure out how to time that better. When I got home I was spent. The round trip--about twenty miles--was a very different twenty miles than Bruce and I enjoyed on Sunday. A little later, after dinner, I found myself experiencing a strange physical problem. Just for maybe fifteen minutes there was a hard to describe disturbance in my visual field--kind of an op art thing going on--that may or may not be associated with the physical exertion I had engaged in. I will literally keep an eye on that.

So there are no shortages of challenges in the early going. What this sixty-year old overweight guy was thinking when he decided to take this on sometimes baffles even me. And yet, despite some very real disbeliefs, a small part of me--the part that is often gasping for air--says, "Yes, I can."

Or was that Barack Obama?