Ed fumbled with his bicycle gloves. He found himself wishing that he and Pauline had found time to take off in
the morning instead of mid-afternoon with the late summer heat now in full swing. He was also a little intimidated
by Pauline’s obviously superior bicycling abilities.
“Ed, cycling is one of the best low impact fitness activities that you can do.”
She stood by her carbon fiber
frame skinny-tired road bike dressed in skintight lycra bike shorts that revealed that Pauline had not one ounce of
fat in her thighs and bottom, along with her skintight spaghetti strapped lycra jersey that accentuated every
muscle in her rib cage. That, along with the jewel in her belly button exposed by the bare midriff made her
look like an advertisement for fitness products.
“Where did you say this swimming hole was that we are riding to?”
Ed felt self-conscious in his baggy mountain bike shorts that accentuated his slightly spindly legs and a
t-shirt that did not hide his slight potbelly while he stood next to his deferred maintenance and mud caked
knobby tired mountain bike.
“I haven’t been riding much the past few years. Frankly, I haven’t had anyone to
ride with as beautiful as you. The swimming hole is only about 8 miles out Butte Canyon Road. There should be
almost no traffic and with this being a week day, we will have the swimming hole all to ourselves.”
Pauline smiled and leaned over to give Ed a little kiss. “You are sweet.
My father is still a hard-core
cyclist who got me started with serious riding when I was barely a teenager. I was the youngest girl to ever
complete one of our local double metric centuries.” She reached into her pack for a bottle of sun block.
“Could you put this on, I really don’t want to burn. I actually tan pretty well, but just don’t get much time
to get into the sun. The Minnesota summers are pretty brief. I am glad that I was able to ship my bike out
here to California where the weather is so wonderful. I look forward to getting used to riding the hills out
here with all of the wonderful scenery. Maybe I could complete the Markleeville Death Ride. These hills with
the long grades do require some different muscles.”
Ed rubbed the lotion into her shoulders and the backs of her arms, marveling at the taughtness and suppleness
of her perfectly smooth skin, which had a translucency like fine china. ‘I guess I take the climate for granted.
Do you still ride centuries?”
“When the weather permits, back home I try to ride at least one century every two weeks. When I actually am
home, that is. The long summer evenings allow me to ride at least 200 miles per week. I spend about two hours
per day in the gym in the winter months and I cross country ski most weekends in the winter.
Oooh, rub a little
harder, that feels good.”
Ed started rubbing the sunblock into the small of her back and began to work it around her waste and onto her
stomach, marveling at her fitness. “Well, I won’t be riding fast today. I have never done a century.”
Pauline, leaned her bike against a fence post and turned around, tightly pulling Ed’s body as close as she
could to her body. She gave Ed a long slow kiss, his attraction to her body being very obvious.
Pauline broke off the kiss. Still grasping her body tightly, Ed asked her, “Are we going too fast or
not fast enough?”
“I don’t really know. Part of me wants to go faster, and part of me wants to slow down. I think that I am
falling in love with you and I realize now that I have never really been in love before. It’s a little bit
frightening for me.”
“I am just so glad that I seem to be falling in love with lady as smart and beautiful and fit as you are.”
“I have always thought that fitness is a life style. It is something some people choose. Life is about choices.
I choose to be fit.”
Continued ...
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