The front of my thighs are very, very stiff today, and I know why. Here in Ghana, I have a fixed gear bike, and went out the day before yesterday with my guide for what turned out to be a ride of 8 to 10 miles. My guide was riding a kid’s bike which was too small for him, and the derailleurs were broken, so he only had one gear, and the bottom bracket had gone, so he really preferred to freewheel wherever possible, which made overall progress rather slow, so we crept along on very rough roads, which really counted as off-road equivalent. Oh, and I’d had three weeks plus off the bike on holiday.
So, the recipe:
Don’t ride for 3 weeks
Then go out on your fixed
Ride very slowly uphill, without honking
Ride slowly downhill, using lots of leg-braking because of sandy, treacherous terrain
Sit back, and enjoy excruciating thighs, especially the following two days!
