My best friend (1 of 3) ted came over for a dinner of homemade chicken strips, potato salad, and green salad and due to our slight overindulgence briefly considered staying in, playing xbox and eating the night away. But determined to not let my fat ass make a reappearance we decided on ride to central park in burnaby.
Despite feeling the onset of cramps from not listening to your mom (yes, I mean your mom) and going riding right after dinner, i felt good as we neared the park and offered to show ted my route into new west. The path is gorgeous during the day, but unlit at night. Luckily for us, our bike lights dimly lit the sometimes winding and quick path for us.
21km from my apartment we stood at the northern end of the queensborough bridge in new west when ted's inability to know fear or restraint suggested that we ride into richmond before heading home. It's a quarter after 10pm and I have to work in the morning. It's at least another 25km back and the bike route through richmond consists of a poorly lit two lane road running parallel to highway 91. I've never done this before. Somehow I'm sold.
The Queensborough is not a pleasant bridge to ride. It's fast, it's relatively narrow, and there's no divider but the raised sidewalk between you and traffic. That I'm afraid of heights and the sidewalk is at parts bumpy didn't help the fast descent from the peak of the bridge which made me grip my handle bars tightly like the flimsy roller coaster bar that shifts when pushed. It reminded me very clearly why I hate riding over bridges.
Riding through richmond farmland made me think of two things. Farmland at night is colder than the city and farms smell like horseshit. We rode quickly, likely surprising the dumptrucks that drove by us in the dark with our red and white lights beating like our quickened pulses. We talked often, not letting the task at hand slow the social aspect of being in the middle of nowhere with only one friend. It was chilly, it smelled like shit and at times solvents, but it was great.
The cold made my nose run slowly, so I used my sleeve to sop up the sauce and fired what I could over the shoulder in the way that runners and bikers do when they don't want to stop until we rested briefly at a 7-11 to refuel on orange juice, water, and gummy cola bottles.
Riding back into vancouver was easier than I expected. It's a long uphill ride that I remember kicking my fat ass when i was younger and in lesser physical shape but we rode steadily, seeing quiet subdivisions we had never ventured into before and older apartments that we mocked for their generic ugliness as we weaved through quiet residential streets.
By the time I reached downtown, I could feel my legs burning like the urethras of so many southeast asian sex tourists and my back ached slightly from spending 3 hours hunched over my tiny mountain bike frame. I'll probably walk funny tomorrow like a juvenile serving time in an adult jail but 52 kilometers and 3 hours later, I'm feeling a bit euphoric for pushing myself a bit further mentally and physically than I had planned for.
