I bought a road bike last fall.  No carbon fiber frame, just a craigslist bargain.  It’s been good exercise and created great opportunities to ride with friends.  A few months back I was at a meeting with my friend Ken, an avid and more experience cyclist. His advice was simple, “If you want to get better, ride up.”  Made sense, so I thought I’d give it a try.  I found a local group on meetup.com and put the ride on my calendar.  When I went to the garage to load up I had a flat – by the time I got it fixed and drove to the meet up, the group had left.  There were other cyclists in the parking lot so I figured I’d ask around, maybe somebody else still wanted to ride.  I met Danny.  As he was getting ready, he was telling another cyclist about his recent knee surgery – the doctor had just given him permission to ride “easy.”  I’m thinking this may not be the workout I was hoping for, but at least I’ll get in a ride. As we headed out on the 30 mile route Danny began telling me about his double centuries, marathons and 9 IronMan Triathlons.  This wasn’t going to be easy – this was going to be the very epitome of riding up.  My legs, my lunges and my ego survived.  I rode the fastest 30 miles I’d ever done – by 20 minutes.  And, I learned more about cycling in 2 hours than I had in 6 months.  All of that, by simply following someone better than me for a couple of hours.  Ken was right.  If you want to get better, ride up.