The Secret Gear

I discovered a secret gear on my bike that makes me go incredibly fast! This Secret Gear made me 5-10 minutes faster on my normal training loop.

"How did you discover this Secret Gear", you may be woundering.

Well..if I told you that, then the gear wouldn't be a secret anymore! Now would it?

Okay, fine. I will tell you. It probably won't make sense though. I don't know any bicycle lingo.

The Secret Gear is the middle gear (gear 2 out of 3- my gears correspond to numbers on my handlebars) located on the side of my bike that controls the big gears. This is followed by the gear with the greatest resistence (highest?) on the side of my bike that controls the gears you adjust more often. The gears you adjust more often are numbered from 1-7. 7 (the gear with the greatest resistence) was the gear I was riding the most often. This (highest?) gear will change a few places up (to a lower gear?) when I am riding up a hill.

I told you I didn't know bike lingo!

All I know is that it was a complete accident that I found this gear. The way I found this gear (completely giving away the secret!) was that I heard a clicking noise on my bike. Thinking the bike was out of gear, I shifted some of my gears to correct the mistake.

I moved my big gears up from the lowest gear with the least resistence , to the middle gear. After moving to this gear, I noticed that I actually moved forward. This is opposed to the gear I had been using which caused me to pedal madly, yet move nowhere!

The entire remainder of this quicker-than-normal bike ride, I blasted up hills and was actually able to pedal the downhills, instead of merely coasting them! This was all thanks to the wounderful new gear!

The only thing I regret from this ride is that I didn't find this Secret Gear sooner. I also regret one other thing: My knees were kind of hurting while in this Secret Gear. I tink I need to make the seat on my bicycle a little higher. My knees felt really squeezed-in while riding today. I was probably putting too much pressure on cramped knees.

I hope this new found speed wasn't just a fluke. If I am able to ride at a faster speed more cosistently, I have a good shot at being able to do an olympic triathlon this summer (in less than 5 hours)!