First wet ride!

It's a Sunday today and with my decision a couple of weeks ago to start sporting again, making a combination between Inline Skating and Mountain Biking (well, living in a country that's 99% FLAT it will be mainly road biking) it was the day to head out on the road again, I'm planning to go out twice a week and maybe I will slip in one extra training once my body has become accustomed to my new plans when I have the time, Thurdays and Sundays are the days I have the most free time and it is nicely divided across the week as well, good plan so far!

I'm a noob as far as cycling goes, I cycled to work for more than 15 years but that was on my regular bicycle and only 5km in total every day, when I was younger I inline skated A LOT and I did a good amount of kilometers running as well but now I'm getting older my feet can't handle the load anymore and I kept having injuries, making me stop completely with everything for a while.

The roads in The Netherlands are awesome for cycling, and the reason I choose a mountain bike over a gravel bike is just that I like the way MTBers look compared to regular racing bikes, I'm sure they're faster with the smaller tires and tight fitting clothing but for me it is just about being out there, having fun and keeping my body (and mind) in shape, plus there's a partially off-road MTB trail in my neighborhood so when I'm able to get more distance in one day, I will be heading there... for now it's roads only since the one way trip to the trail is 10km and the trail itself has two loops, 12km and 18km and then 10km back home.. I think that's perfectly fine in a couple of months but let's take things easy for now. 🙂

Making posts about my rides is a great way to post something else besides my mostly Splinterlands related content, and I like making posts so let's go!

I learned some things from YouTube video's... plan your trip facing the wind on the first half of the trip, so you have the wind in your back on the way home, which is a really helpful tip so I planned my route for today with exactly that in mind.

I've made a new account to Strava as well, but I don't want to get the paid version so I will just have to make my own routes, which is fine because I can estimate what the distance will be using Google Maps, Strava is still very nice to track my total distance and it's nice the app auto pauses the training when I stop to take a picture for my post and drink for a minute or two before continuing.

Yesterday evening, when I planned this route, the weather forecast predicted no rain between 6 and 9am, I like to go out early in the morning on Sunday's when there's almost no one outside, and it's also safer without cars on the roads.
Because of work, I wake up without an alarm anywhere between 5 and 6am anyways, sleeping out for me is anything beyond 6:15 😁.

The reality when I got downstairs this morning was different, the temperature prediction was right, it wasn't cold with 15 degrees, I think it's a perfect temperature but it was already raining...

I decided to wait until 7am so I would get at least a part of my ride without rain so I had something to drink and two sandwiches to have some fuel for my body to burn in the meantime.

With only two cycling trips on my new bike before this one, this was the first trip in wet conditions, plus my gear had arrived so I finally had some nice riding gloves, two bags and a rear light plus bib-shorts... they feel a little bit funny when you wear bib-shorts for the first time but they do work perfectly!

My helmet and glasses are not new because I was using them for inline skating in the past, it was nice I could replace the dark lenses for yellow ones today, the sun is taking an off day and I like the yellow filter when the light is not too bright outside, with my helmed and glasses on, I didn't mind the rain at all, my wind and waterproof jacket helped a lot with that as well, so I didn't feel much of the rain.

On the halfway point I got to one of the many dykes in my country, great asphalt and with the wind mostly blowing in my back the second half was even more fun with higher speeds and beautiful views, even in these weather conditions.

I passed a little marina with some really nice boats, I don't like being on a boat but I like seeing them.

This is just before I turn away from the dyke, heading for home again - the Strava app showed me I already cycled 17.5km and I had enough energy left but I knew with my body still getting used to me getting all excited about something new I'd better not take it to the limit and make the most efficient way home, which was about 5km from here.

With a total of 23.28km it's not a bad start I think and it's my biggest distance so far, but my first training (18km) being too much for my untrained body and my second training (15km) with two Inline Skating (7km) trips in between.

Fitbit has different stats because it doesn't pause when I stop on the side of the road, with an average heart rate of 138 BPM is was a energetic exercise.

It's amazing how many muscles are being used when cycling, I would've said it's legs only but I can already feel my abdominal and back muscles so my entire core will get stronger, which is very nice because I sometimes have lower back pain, maybe this will get less because of the stronger muscles as well.

On top of the exciting cycling trip, I picked up 6 empty cans on the side of the road, cleaning nature around me and collecting the 15 cents in deposit money that's €0,90 I will turn in to $SPS, the governance token for my favorite game @splinterlands to help me earn more and it gives a nice 10% APR 🙂.

Well.. this was my first post in the cycling community, I hope it's any good, it was fun making it, see you on the next one!