The first night....

July 7th, the day after my 13th anniversary with my wife, I decided to start this exercise. The guys, who had been biking all day, were going to meet me at my house when I got off work(11pm) and we were gonna go on my maiden voyage. They did and I was ready...They started off thinking we should take it slow, they didn't know what I was capable of(neither did I). We did two miles and I told them we should ride to my work, seemed like the logical thing to do, after all my goal was to ride to and from work to start losing this weight. We made it to my work and back and I found out just what I could handle that night! About ten miles on my first night gave me confidence, heck I even biked to work the next day like it was no big deal(another ten miles). Saturday brought a new and exciting trail, I play in a worship band at my church and we practice on Saturdays....8 miles away from my house, no problem in a car but I wanted to push my limits! I biked ten miles there(went for a detour or two) and then biked ten miles back, 20 miles in one day! But I wasn't finished, if I could ride to work and home I'd have around 30 miles on my third day of biking...yet another accomplishment for my overweight self. I decided to give it a try, headed out for work around two o'clock and heard some clicking the whole way, it really bothered me so I called a couple friends trying to explain what I was hearing and what I could do about it?! After a whole lot to do about nothing, they all told me "it's normal". A little side story here, I didn't own a great bike, I was given a Rhino from one of my friends and had owned a next(both grocery store bikes) not quite tour de France ya know? So I set out for my journey home after 8 hours of work and 25.5 miles I was ready for the last five and a good nights rest, that didn't happen! I made it almost all the way home and my back tire locked up, I'm sitting here thinking it's a brake problem(had saw a friend deal with one the night before). I walked the bike home 4 blocks, luckily it was so close to the house! I don't know what I would do if I was 4 miles out. Once I got it home the next thing to do was get it fixed, I had a back up bike I was prepared to use until it was done, the up coming week was going to be filled with stumbling blocks!