My friends go out to a lovely spot in Amagansett on Long Island every summer, and at the end of June 2010, I tagged along with them. After taking the swanky jitney out there, they picked me up and showed me where the bike shop was... in case I wanted to rent a bike to go for a lovely little ride the next morning while they were sleeping in. I'm a very early riser, so after getting up, I decide to go exploring. I went down to the bike shop, rented a nice little hybrid, took one of their maps and head out for a ride.
After a few miles of fairly flat terrain, I was feeling awesome and had this thought that I could ride all the way to the Montauk lighthouse. Well, that didn't go so well. I got to a spot called Hither Hills and felt like I was going to die. I always thought that Long Island was one just big flat stretch from Queens to Montauk with gentle hills in between. After seeing the large rolling hills ahead of me, and feeling like I might throw up (at about 12 miles, it was the longest stretch of biking I'd done to that point), I decided to turn around and head back.
But the ride back wasn't totally smooth sailing, the nice seemingly even road I'd traveled out, was actually a slow decline, which meant that the way back was actually uphill. My legs were burning like crazy. So much for the nice easy vacation ride I'd anticipated.
When I got back to the bike shop, the guys there asked me how my ride was and I told them where I went and they had all they could do not to laugh. The problem then? I was still about a mile from the hotel, and had to walk back... and my legs were like jelly. Thankfully, there was a snack shop along the way where I could rest my weary legs, before getting back to the hotel and blissfully sitting on the beach for a few hours.
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