Awesome present...

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

I’d spent the day thinking I would be going for a ride that evening. It was cold…in the 40’s, but I didn’t want to get on the trainer again after having gotten a taste of riding outdoors again. As I made my way to my car after work though, it was through raindrops. Bastards.

John was stopping by with a ‘pre-birthday’ present. I told him the bike was enough of a present for the next ten years…or couple of days…but he was insistent. I had time enough for a 1-hour ride on the trainer, so I plugged in ‘Lost’ and started riding. I finished as he was knocking on the door, so I went to let him in soaked to the bone.

“Dude…you seriously sweat way too much. You’re going to rust out my bike in…what…three summer rides?” He was absolutely right, but what the hell could I do? I am what I am…a sweaty man.

We ate some cheese and crackers and he gave me my present. The first was a little, battery-powered camping light like the one he’d gotten last year as a present and about which I’d teased him for its impractical nature. “I got two at the time…so I thought I’d burden you with one,” he said. Savannah was sitting at the table with us so I gave it to her. The second box held an altimeter watch…also like the one he’d gotten recently on my advice and which I wouldn’t be giving to anyone.

“I got you one because the directions for mine are too complicated for me to figure out and I know you’ll read the manual and give me a lesson,” he said. Now…that’s scary…me teaching the technical aspects of anything…but he was right. I’m better at it than him and I’m really excited about what the watch adds to the ability to know precisely where you are in the back country. It’s got a barometric pressure reading, an excellent compass, timer, watch, alarm and the ability to store the accumulated feet climbed during a trek…everything but a corkscrew. The instruction manual was in 17 languages and had print in it that would fit on the head of a pin. I had to take my contacts out and hold it an inch from my nose to read it…but I had it working pretty quickly. John had used his on our ride Sunday and was able to tell how many feet we’d climbed by the end of the ride…a very sweet tool I’m looking forward to using on my rides, hikes and bleacher workouts. I’ll keep you posted…

Bike duration: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 900.