Do you ride?

Fair Warning! I started out riding my kids' old bike about 7 years ago. I enjoyed it. Just riding it around the neighborhood. Then I wanted to get my own. So I bought a Huffy. I thought I was really something when I rode it 8 miles in one day...not all at one time, mind you. I started riding it around to do errands, and riding it every day. I wore it out in 3 months (Sorry, but Huffy is not known for their quality) I replaced with with a Schwinn (which I still have and still ride sometimes) and I started riding farther. A friend mentioned that he used to do Century Rides. I had never heard of such a thing. The man actually said he rode 100 miles in a day...on a regular basis. I was intrigued. Then I saw an ad for a flat century ride. No hills. Hmmmm.....By then I had gotten a slightly better road bike. A secondhand Novara. I really wondered how far I could actually ride. I entered the century ride and signed up for the metric, which was 67 miles. And I finished it. I wanted someone to kill me the last 10 miles, but I finished the thing. I had been biking for about 2 years by then. After doing a few more metric centuries on my Novara, I realized all those 20 and 30 somethings who were pedaling past me, and looking superior, were riding bikes that weighed about 1/3 what mine did. I started lusting after a Trek Road bike. I finally got one a couple years ago. Its a lower end one, but still a Trek. Cost me about 1000.00. I ride anywhere from 200 to 400 miles a month, depending on the amount of time I have available. I did my first metric century of the season a little over a week ago. It was supposed to be a 60 mile route, but was actually 65 and there was a poorly marked intersection that I went straight through instead of turning. Didn't figure it out for 4 miles. So getting back on track added a total of 8 miles. I rode for 5.5 hours, a total of 73 miles. And I passed several people from behind, who were probably half my age I'm planning on doing the 100 mile route on the flat one this October. I swore I would never be caught dead in spandex bike clothes. I still hate the jersey's because they ride up, but I own several pair of spandex shorts, bike gloves, clip on bike shoes, and I"m rarely seen in anything else from spring through fall. Its like a disease! You have been warned! Continue to pedal at your own risk!

Fair Warning! I started out riding my kids' old bike about 7 years ago. I enjoyed it. Just riding it around the neighborhood. Then I wanted to get my own. So I bought a Huffy. I thought I was really something when I rode it 8 miles in one day...not all at one time, mind you. I started riding it around to do errands, and riding it every day. I wore it out in 3 months (Sorry, but Huffy is not known for their quality) I replaced with with a Schwinn (which I still have and still ride sometimes) and I started riding farther. A friend mentioned that he used to do Century Rides. I had never heard of such a thing. The man actually said he rode 100 miles in a day...on a regular basis. I was intrigued. Then I saw an ad for a flat century ride. No hills. Hmmmm.....By then I had gotten a slightly better road bike. A secondhand Novara. I really wondered how far I could actually ride. I entered the century ride and signed up for the metric, which was 67 miles. And I finished it. I wanted someone to kill me the last 10 miles, but I finished the thing. I had been biking for about 2 years by then. After doing a few more metric centuries on my Novara, I realized all those 20 and 30 somethings who were pedaling past me, and looking superior, were riding bikes that weighed about 1/3 what mine did. I started lusting after a Trek Road bike. I finally got one a couple years ago. Its a lower end one, but still a Trek. Cost me about 1000.00. I ride anywhere from 200 to 400 miles a month, depending on the amount of time I have available. I did my first metric century of the season a little over a week ago. It was supposed to be a 60 mile route, but was actually 65 and there was a poorly marked intersection that I went straight through instead of turning. Didn't figure it out for 4 miles. So getting back on track added a total of 8 miles. I rode for 5.5 hours, a total of 73 miles. And I passed several people from behind, who were probably half my age I'm planning on doing the 100 mile route on the flat one this October. I swore I would never be caught dead in spandex bike clothes. I still hate the jersey's because they ride up, but I own several pair of spandex shorts, bike gloves, clip on bike shoes, and I"m rarely seen in anything else from spring through fall. Its like a disease! You have been warned! Continue to pedal at your own risk!

You are very right.. I've only had my bike for a short time and I can already feel it not being happy with me.
After about the 8th jump I can hear the teeth miss whenever I go to pedal hard. It's a cheap bike.
When I get mroe serious I may look into something fancy. Id love to have shocks.. that would make all the difference right now.
Not to mention my bike (mountain bike) is not light by any stretch of the imagination.

Funny thing about the Huffy...I worked in an avionics shop at the time and was riding to and from work. When it just got to sounding awful, I took it to a bike shop to see what was going on with it. There was a comic strip taped to the counter by the cash register that said, "Would you fly in a plane made by Huffy?" If that didn't clue me to the guy's feelings about Huffy, I got it when he told me my bike was c#@p and to get it out of his shop. I was embarrassed and mad. I took it back to K-Mart and made them give me credit for it since I had only had it a couple months and then paid the balance on the Schwinn. Which, as I said, was pretty heavy. But here's the payoff...I had been riding the Schwinn about 8 months and I come in to work one day and there's a guy in the hangar waiting for some work to be finished on his plane. He sees me come in and park my bike and asked me if I rode it to work every day and I said that I did. He said I was working harder than I needed to. He said I needed road bike tires on it instead of the mountain bike tires. I said I would think about it. I hadn't looked too closely at him and I went into my office. He came in later to pay his bill and I looked at him and said, "HEY! You're that mean guy who made me cry and threw me out of your shop because I had a Huffy." He was horrified and took my bike with him when he left and returned it later that day with Fat Boy slick road bike tires, all cleaned and tuned up. At no charge. Guess he didn't want me around his plane, all ticked off at him.