This one goes to OleKingKole

So a good friend of mine (who's actually biking across the nation this summer while building houses with Habitat for Humanity through Bike and Build) handed his old bike down to me for my riding (and commuting to math class) enjoyment, and I am PSYCHED. Okay, so he didn't really hand it down to me, he gave it to me for 20 bucks and a few stipulations, but that's beside the point. I have a ROCKIN, SOCKIN, bike, and I'm quite excited to travel around Philadelphia and everywhere around in it.

Krumbhaa, you now have a wingman.

In fact, I'm so excited that my friends decided to go bike riding a couple times in the past few days, one of which was mountain biking at the nearby Lake Minnewaska. It was my first time mountain biking ever, and I'm probably really bad at conveying my enthusiasm for the trip over blogging, but from that experience mountain biking definitely has a shot at being my second favorite hobby (next to snowboarding). It's got the speed and downhill excitement of snowboarding, with a bit of sightseeing mixed in, and a whole lot of fun sweat-equity (read: going up hills is a bitch but awesome when you get to the top). In fact, I really want to get a legit mountain bike now and travel around to different places to bike around. AND it's a summer sport, so I don't have to choose between that and snowboarding.

So thank you, OleKingKole, for giving me your bike and inspiring me to take on a new hobby. It's cardio-tastic, yet not nearly as difficult as running, and infinitely more fun. Who knows, maybe if I like it enough I'll take on the great wonder that is Bike and Build too.

I'll end this post with two remarks: JAI HO (because that song's stuck in my head) and if you're curious to see what biking across the nation's like, visit OleKingKole's blog here: http://jonkole.blogspot.com/

Oh wait, actually one more thing. You'll see in the pictures that I'm wearing a helmet. I'm actually quite glad I wore a helmet that day. Not because I almost ran into a tree or because I fell off my bike, but because at the very end of the day, as we were packing the bikes back onto the roof rack of the car, I dropped the thing on my head. Yeah, go helmet!...

The Men (Actually as fieresome as we look, I was actually really afraid of falling off the ledge in this picture because I'm a decent bit afraid of heights. And yes, we're FIERCE.)

Some lovely lake background scenery