Biking (or: how the love story began)

Being an out of shape fat guy did not mean I did not have any slim or fit friends. In fact many of my friends were engaged is various sportive activities. Few of them were into biking. They were meeting every weekend for a mountain biking riding and more than once they offered me to join. Waking up at 6 am on Saturday just to exhaust myself in what seemed to me back than as an uncomfortable and unfriendly sport, was not my idea of fun. It was bad enough that I was tortured 4 times a week at the gym. Why should I go to the mountains and be tortured in new and creative ways??

One day, My friend Assi, One of those mountain riders, managed to be a little more persuasive and persistent than usual. He even offered to arrange a mountain bike for me to make it more bearable and promised that despite all my arguments against it, it will be fun. I guess that I was in an exceptionally good mood that day because I ended up saying "ok".

Assi, a man of his word, arranged a pair of bikes in no time. That was it. Place and time were set and all I needed to do was to show up. ho, and have some fun too. 7am, Sunday morning, near Fremont Older. Hmmm who could have guessed how familiar I would become with this place...

Saturday morning we all met at a friend's house. I got the spare bike, the group arrived, and we started riding. Let the fun begin.

That was a NIGHTMARE! we climbed from the friend's house to Fremont Older, which was about 4 miles, climbing probably 800-1000 feet. Now let's go back a bit... this was after a few months of training at the gym and at least two dozens of pounds lost. I was lighter than ever and in a relatively good shape. Or so I thought...

Assi is climbing one of Fremont older's hills

It was a nightmare, it was hard, it was unbearable at times and it also was probably one of the sweetest things I ever did (not including the time I spend with my lovely wife off course, who also reads this blog from time to time...). I fell in love. The views, the smells of nature around me, going downhill (although i was scared to death on my first single). All there was missing was a cheesy love tune to be played in the background that would have made this love story perfect.

Went down exhausted but with a stupid smile on my face, this smile was there to stay!