Little Red: What I Learned From 3,000 Women on Bikes

So how was the riding different than Chicago? Look, I don't want to knock our great city.  We have an amazing lakefront path.  We can ride day or night on it, and we can also ride all over our city (sometimes with greater safety than others.)  We are lucky to have a cyclist for a mayor, and a great advocacy group for local bikers.  But we lack one key thing:  open road.  If you want to ride for more than a mile without hitting your brakes, you've got to head to DeKalb, or Kankakee, or Libertyville.  You've got to get out of the city, because going more than 10 MPH on any of our local paths implies you have a death wish.

In the Cache Valley in Lewiston, Utah, where our ride started,  this is the sight that greeted me.

Crazy, right?  But that's Utah (and not even a really good picture of it.)  That was just one of the wide open views I had all day as we were riding along, catching sight of mountains and farms. 

So the simple answer is this: the difference between riding in Chicago, and taking it to the country, is that you can ride fast, or slow, but steady.  And long.  And it goes by quicker than you know what to do with.  But what I also found is this: when you're not worried about hitting human beings, stopping for traffic, watching for slow riders, and constantly shouting "on your left", you get back something you had all the time as a kid: joy.

Yep, joy.  I couldn't stop grinning on Saturday.  Seriously, I just kept giggling.  "It's gorrrrrrrrrrrrrgeous!" I'd purr, checking in with my friends on either side.  They just laughed at me.  But really, when you live in the city, you can forget what an amazing landscape does for your state of mind.  Staring at million year old mountains (okay maybe not  that old) and gorgeous skies and farms as far as the eye can see (and a few goats, and horses, and cows, and pigs), you remember that the fun part of being on a bike isn't just "training".  It isn't just riding to the store, or having an excuse to play with your kids.  Riding bikes when we were little was about joy, because every ride was an adventure.  And Saturday, that was an adventure! 

The author fresh as a daisy at Mile 24.

 

So how did that girl's weekend thing work?  What about the boys?  Look, I know what the boys are thinking:  we can't hold boys-only rides, so why do the ladies get to do it?  To which I will say only this:  you have plenty.  Leave us our rides, will ya?  This is one place where we can celebrate being with other active women, and celebrate we did.

I arrived on Friday with my friend Karen, who spends lots of quality time traveling for her high-powered job.  (She'd humbly claim to disagree about power, but would readily acknowledge the travel demands are incessant.)   We both wanted nothing more than a weekend of fun, and relaxation, and to meet up with some of the very great women who had introduced me to Little Red in the first place.  Ergo, Diane.  Diane is a fellow blogger and member of the Bonneville Cycling Club, a group based near Salt Lake City that offers dozens - no, really, DOZENS - of organized rides every week for its more than 500 members.  I met Diane through the blogging world, and she convinced me that Little Red was worth the trip.  She was right.

Diane and Kim Before the ride.

 

When I showed up on Friday at packet pickup, Diane was in full swing as the volunteer coordinator for the event.  With a wicked sense of deja vu, I watched as she and Jeannie Allgood, artist, club member, and 3,000+ mile per year rider extraordinaire, managed the volunteers for the event.  Deja vu, because, it seemed that without trying, I had met my "life doppelganger" in Diane, helping to manage events, settle nerves, and get people excited about this event, much the same way I do in my own circle.  Saturday morning, we rode with Diane and Kym (another great club member) through a gorgeous first 14 miles, and on Sunday, we capped the weekend with a great lunch with Diane and Jeannie.  Girl time?  You betcha.  Learning time?  Even more.

Sallie, Kym (doing double duty as food coordinator for 3,000), Diane, and Karen. Rockin women ready for a ride!

 

In addition to those rock stars (who rode 80 and 57 miles, while I wimped out at a mere 35), I met an assortment of women on the ride who made me smile even more.  There was "three generation" riding group - grandma, mom, and daughter, who we came upon around Mile 20, smiling and enjoying the ride (Grandma most of all, I think.)  There were the plus-sized women taking on the 35 miler, prepared and proud to be knocking out their ride.  There was the pace line zipping by at Mile 27 (coming in from their 80 miler) who shouted out "Just let me know if I drop below 18 miles per hour!" to the "second" in the line, as I laughed hysterically while riding along at a comfy 14 miles per hour.  And there were the hundreds of volunteer course marshalls, riding along in bright yellow vests, keeping the riders to the right and allowing traffic to pass.

Every one of them contributed to the day in a different way.  But the most interesting thing about it is that, despite the sense I get sometimes in a triathlon or a road race, there was very little judging going on.  A woman headed out from her car as we did prior to the race, kitted out in a super cool "uni" of shorts and top and shoes that made me think she was some sort of pro.  Then she shouted out "I guess I should switch gears.  I haven't been on this bike since last year" and I laughed.  She was just like me, but with better gear!  Talk about feeling at home!  And though I think many riders were well prepared, they were also incredibly encouraging - and smart. 

They were also modest. At the end of the day, one of my favorite contests was "Best Helmet Hair", which had women scrambling to hit the stage for a $50 gift card to a local cyclery. Note the contestants below (the woman who eventually won definitely earned it!).

What triathlon do you know of that has a helmet head contest? Shouldn't they all?

 

So what about that whole "training" thing?  Did registering for a long ride force you to train?  Welll, sort of.  Did I mention  those wise women on this ride?  I might be lucky enough to have a few of them in my life as well.  About a month and a half ago, when I hadn't ridden more than 15 miles, my good friend Jenny said to me "Why do you have to do 57 miles?  What's making you think that 35 isn't good enough?"  It got me thinking about my perception of effort, and what my real goals were.  Because, in the past, I had done a really long ride (110 miles in two days at the MS Ride), and because I can "throw off" 20 miles without hurting, riding anything less than 50 miles felt like a cop out.  But when I really dug into that, I had to stop and think that most people, at my weight, or at any weight, don't consider riding 35 miles a cop out.  Personally, I have a slightly skewed sample size against which I compare my active life.  It's a group comprised of endurance runners and triathletes, Ironmen and Ironwomen, Ultramarathoners and sub-10 minute milers who can run multiple marathons in a year and be just fine.

But that's not been my reality the past year or so.  As I return from the most serious injuries of my running and active adult life, the rules have changed.  Now, it's not as much about finishing multiple races in a year as much as it's about having great experiences that remind me about the joy of being active, and help sustain an active life for me.  As I lined up for Little Red, this sign said it all. 

 What did the sign know that I didn't?  That things happen to take you off course sometimes.  Life intervenes and makes training hard, or you just choose to take an easier route.  And that's what I chose this weekend.  Then, after we rode 35 miles at Little Red, I had fresh enough legs to do something else I don't do much in Chicago - hike.  By choosing to go easy on the mileage, I avoided getting hurt (again) or trying to do something that I wasn't ready for, and instead, got to take in a view of an even more breathtaking site, from 1,000 feet higher than I had been in the valley. 

 

The view on the Wind Cave trail in Logan Canyon.

So no, my training didn't quite go as planned.  But we were able to hike (even if we only got in another two hours or so) and I came home rested, and smiling.

All in all, not a bad trip.  Open roads, great women, an incredibly organized ride, and energy to spare.  Really, I don't know what else an active person could ask for in a weekend. 

So what's your takeaway from all this grandness?  Just this:  think about your summer, and think about what might make you smile just like I did.  And then: GO.  Book your campground, or your trip away. Register for that ride in the country, or just take your bike with you the next time you head out of town.  It may not be Utah, and it may not be 3,000 butt-kicking women making you want to ride, but it might bring you back a little bit of joy, and remind you of why being active is so much fun.  It's brought me back again, for sure.  I can only wish the same for you.

See you on the path!