It seemed like a good idea at the time. I thought, if we’re going to ride our bikes somewhere to work out, we don’t want to be exhausted by the time we get there. We live an a hilly area. There are several steep hills between us and any destination. My goal was to avoid riding up any of them. So I mapped out a ‘no-sweat’ bike route to the high school across town.

Xay has been obsessed with discovering the town on his bike lately, and he had an open gym at my alma mater, so it seemed like a good combination. In fact, we’d just told him to take the trip with a friend a few days ago. I told him I’d ride with him to show him the way.

We started close to an hour early. We rode down the first big hill. So far, so good. We hit a flat patch of land and rode south. At the foot of the next big hill, we turned and went an alternate route. This is where we hit our first snag. The ‘no sweat route’ was actually a very gradual hill. Whereas we would have just climbed up the steep hill and then gone down another, we were still slowly climbing on this route.

It was overcast, so we both wore vinyl Landsend raincoats. They were sticking to us by this point. We kept going. We found a smaller hill at the top of the slow descent. We climbed that and reached one of the streets I had planned on using. I thought again, and thought it would put us way out of the way, so we stayed where we were. We had about 20 minutes to get there. After a series of small hills, we made it to the street that the school is on. We had 5 minutes, and about a mile to cover to get there. We pushed it. We actually got to the school 1 minute late.

The first leg of the trip was 7.55 miles.

Then Xay went in and played basketball for an hour. It was supposed to be two hours, but I remembered an appointment we would miss if we stayed another hour. We had to calculate an hour for our trip.

For the trip home, I thought we’d start going a more direct route. We used a street I’d avoided on the way there, and stop at McDonald’s on the way. We stopped and bought something cheap and then were back on our way. Again, we turned at the base of the hill–only to climb a different hill! This one went up to a semi-plateau and then climbed again to reach the much anticipated flat-land.

Then we were on a long straightaway. Xay pointed out that we were going the way he’d recently begged me to let him ride and I’d said no. He didn’t seem to grasp the concept that I was with him this time, making it ok. . .

At one point, I felt my bike helmet strap flapping in the wind. It had come loose from the fastener. I looked up and saw our church organist walking down the street. I let go of my helmet strap and waved at her, feeling stupid. This ride had been going on forever by now.

We got to the top of the first hill I’d wanted to avoid on the way out. It was wonderful riding down it. Then we got to the campus area, and our nice sidewalk ran out, so we tried to ride through the campus a bit. This was also hilly, and Xay’s bike quit downshifting at this point.

We made our way back to the street, and rode alongside the cars for a little bit. A little while later, we saw a sign that said bike lane start. We pulled over into the little bike lane. We rode a few feet and got to the top of (another) hill, and saw a sign that said bike lane end. I thought that was random. Why such a short bike lane? At this point, Xay pulled ahead, knowing the way home. I coasted down the hill while he probably pedaled. I had no chance at catching him.

But then we turned. And I saw. . . another hill. And I thought about the hill on our street too, and I almost cried. But I put my head down and pedaled. And I thought about how I grew up in this area, and my muscles are used to climbing hills. And then I passed Xay, who had to get off and walk his now defective bike.

We were right down the street from home! I turned right, and Xay turned left and convinced me to go another ‘sweat-free’ way. Except that it was up another hill. But it did have a nice new bike path on it, and we avoided that hill on our street. It just seemed out of the way, and I had about had it with this meandering ride by then.

I pulled ahead of Xay and subtly tried to race him home. He caught me and said, “I’m going to beat you home,” putting on the speed. “Oh yes! Probably.” I answered. But then he turned and started going the long way. I went the direct way, fast. I neared in on our driveway, no Xay in sight. I thought he was either already home, or I was actually winning. I hit the base of the driveway, noted that his bike was not there, and then saw him rounding the corner. A hollow victory, sure. But, victory!

The way home was 7.46 miles. So I rode 15.01 miles. I don’t know when my butt will recover.