03/05/2021

Journal of a newbie biker EP2

Today I did my longest trip so far, around 160 Km, here is what I learned.

Lesson number three: be humble
I know, this may sound obvious but it’s always good to remember.
You have your first bike, you have your license, you have your safety gear, what can go wrong? Well everything.
No, nothing bad happened to me, but the more I ride the more I understand there’s always something to learn, and the moment you feel too comfortable is the moment you’re closer to make mistakes, bad mistakes.
A few days ago I went to a grocery store for buying some stuff, while I was coming back there was a bump in the road and I though I was some sort of enduro superstar, so I was standing on my footpegs just before a turn. I was too fast for it so I started to brake, but while I was braking I was still twisting a little bit the thrust and I almost crushed on the side of the road on a small wall.
Thanks to the ABS I stopped… but I went so close to ruin my day. In that case I don’t think I can get some injury because I was not that fast, I was riding on an empty street and nobody else was involved… but it was a good lesson :’

Lesson number four: your body needs to adjust to riding
Serious adventure riders can ride for hours, hours, hours, and if you look to their fantstic videos you can think that’s a piece of cake, right?
Well, no :)
I’m not speaking about commuting or a small 50Km trip, I’m speaking about riding for 200-300 Km a day, that’s exhausting for your body.
Don’t get me wrong, you can do it, but you need your body to get used to it, you need training and, most important, you need to be patient, Rome was not built in a day, right?
The last time I went to the lake I did about 100Km with one break in the middle, when I returned home I was happy as a child but my legs were really really tired and specially my butt was hurting.
Today I did 160 Km in total, I did 3 breaks; when I stopped for the first break my butt was hurting and I felt my legs tingling a little bit, after a 5 minutes break I was as good as new, same after each of the other breaks.
At the end of the day the trip was fantastic and I was really happy, I felt like I was able to go around the world and more… but no, remember the previous point, be humble, be patient and train yourself :)