Happy New Year!

Another year of Christmas celebrations are behind us - hopefully your celebration was a joyous one as you reflected on God's goodness to us in sending His son whose birth we could celebrate. As we enter into the New Year may we go with confidence and peace...trusting that God will bless the choices and decisions we have made. To those fellow cyclists, may you have peace knowing that the decision you made to join the ride is the right one. May you also be confident that whatever training you have started or will start soon will prepare you for the ride. The many questions and comments going back and forth between the riders, make for some interesting reading. What type of bike to buy, what pedals to use, what shoes to wear, will the high altitude in Denver be hard to get used to, what airports to fly into/out of, etc. etc? - all real concerns for those who have never done something like this before.

I have the advantage of being married to someone who has done all this already so whatever I need to know, I can ask Joe - this was particularly very helpful just before Christmas when we went out to buy some cycling shoes. We were in the bike store and took a look at the new bikes there as well and just happened to ask the clerk if they ever had used bikes for sale. He asked my height and I told him - he then responded, "I've got the perfect bike for you". He brought it in a few days later and it was a perfect fit - a TREK 2300 - almost brand new and just the right fit for me. The colour passed as well - a lovely mauve colour - now to buy the cyling clothes that match..... The previous owner upgraded and I got a real good deal on this bike. Before we left the store, we'd purchased pedals, water carrier, pouch and carrier for the back and a flight deck. For those who aren't cyclists, you may think that this pertains to an airplane that you could put on auto pilot and it would just keep on going, but it's not, if only changing gears was as simple as putting it on auto pilot. Hopefully this gadget will help me with learning the whole gear changing mechanism. I haven't mastered that part yet. I'm getting used to the clip on shoes during the spin classes at the Y - at least I can't fall off the bikes there and I get some practice unclipping them.

We are heading off to Slidell, Louisiana to do a 3 week session with CRWRC and are taking our bikes with us. Every weekend we should be able to do 2 days of cycling outdoors - this will be a change in exercise from doing the stairs and the spin classes indoors. I don't think we will find too many hills there but we could get some strong winds. Here's hoping no hurricanes come through that area in the next 3 weeks either.

I love some of the interesting tidbits of advice that have come through on the forum as well - quoting scripture that could pertain to our training..."to strengthen feeble arms and weak knees and to make level paths for our feet. Do not swerve to the right or to the left" - good advice when riding in a group. To quote from Philippians 3, the last part of verse 13 reads "forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead...press on toward the goal"- this doesn't only pertain to biking but could be used by all of us as we live our lives to do God's will.

The Aprẻs Training Routine........

In my presentation yesterday, I asked our congregation to offer words of encouragement to us as cyclists, even if they told me I was crazy, I would listen to them and hope to prove them wrong at the end of next summer. Now, some did come up to me and express that view....but that's alright....

Today's training went well considering we had a dump of snow yesterday. First of all I had a stress test done this morning at my doctor's urging. He just wanted to make sure I would be able to take the stress? of the cycling. I passed that. Then after lunch today, my personal trainer, Joe, suggested we do the stairs. We drove to Chedoke Golf Course where we start the first set of stairs - because of the open grid no snow accumulates directly on the stairs so that's not a problem doing them in winter. We did them twice and then decided it wasn't wise to walk to the Dundurn stairs because of the ice on top of the snow. Drove over and did those stairs twice as well. The temperature is -2 with quite a strong wind blowing so we decide the best thing now is to have a sit in the backyard hot tub with a cold one and a plate of crackers and sardines. Sure tastes good after the strenuous exercise! This alone makes you want to keep on training.

The Training's Started

It's 8 months before I join the tour - less seven months before the first cyclists arrive in Seattle for the beginning of the cross country bike tour. They will be exciting months....training, fundraising, and more training.

Sunday, December 2nd, was kick off Sunday at Bethel CRC - my home church. Too bad the weather was not in our favour - many couldn't make it through the snow so the sanctuary was less than 1/2 full - the video was shown and Hilena, a fellow cyclist and myself did our presentation to the congregation - officially our/my fundraising has started. Now to get the word out to others...

The snowfall has stopped all outdoor cycling for now - spin classes at the local "Y" three times a week and setting up my bike on a stand will have to do until we head south in January for some outdoor riding again. Living so close to the Niagara Escarpment gives me an excellent opportunity to climb the 289 steps up, come down, go up again, come down the Chedoke steps, walk for 1.5 km to the next set of steps at Dundurn Street, do the same there - only it's 326 steps here, walk back to the vehicle and go home to rest up for another round at it two days later. This has become my weekly routine and I can always count on Joe, my faithful husband, to join me each time. The snow shouldn't stop us from doing this routine.