Uncle!....

Well, I met my match today, and cried uncle. The group was biking along on a beautiful country road, up and down some nice hills, and came to the next hill. I look down at my computer, and it's reading 8.5% grade, and it looks like the climb is just starting. As I am shifting to my granny gears, Alyssa could not shift up quickly enough, and fell in front of three of us, so we stopped just as we were trying to crank up for this climb. So we're stuck with a climb too hard for us to be able to get on our bikes without falling. We ended up walking our bikes up the hill, which was a chore even walking. My computer would not register the % grade while I was walking, but I was thinking at least 16%. Once up the hill we started to ride again, only to quickly find another hill that had an 11% grade. When we got to the rest stop and were talking about the hills, Alex, who had turned around briefly at the top of the hill, said he had seen a road sign for truckers, showing it was an 18% grade. I had thought about various ways that I could get back on the bike and ride, but just didn't think I could climb it anyway. I was afraid I would have to pull so hard on the handlebars that I would pull the bike over backwards.

Today I started with Allen, and ended up riding a long time with him, because those behind us missed the third turn. So I followed Allen, holding his bike while he got off to chalk the route. We've had a lot of riders getting lost because it's easy to miss the chalk marks if you don't watch the route sheet and the mileage. But, we couldn't figure out why some of the riders didn't catch up. Turns out Alex had two flat tires, and Maranda was riding with him, which explains why two of the faster riders were late catching up. Eventually we had a nice group riding, and I continued to ride with the lead group all day, not always staying with them, but with stop lights and van stops, I managed to reach the church with or right behind them. I'm not sure why I was riding hard trying to keep up all day, except that tomorrow is a day off.

The church members provided dinner, and we had a nice crowd join us and stay for our presentation. Maranda, Alyssa, and I each spoke to the group. As usual, the kids did a great job, and Allen is always good. I seemed to be a little off tonight, but hopefully did well enough.

In my talk this morning during circle, I shared about how many blessings we all should be counting. I highlighted the blog I follow called "Multiple Sclerosis & Faith" about how the simple things we take for granted require extensive planning for a person dealing with MS.

Keep counting those blessings ... Peace ...