change gears

September 21, 2019

I wanted to share our ZOX story from the week of JUL 29th 2019. My husband, daughter and I do a little tour cycling on recumbent cycles. My husband has a two wheeler and my daughter and I ride trikes. They are quite a sight, as well as fun to ride. My parents also ride a recumbent but it's a tandem; even stranger sight. These cycles are very comfortable and a joy to ride. In June of 2017, we did a 237 mile trip across the KATY trail in Missouri and decided to do another tour (distance) trip this year. We shared the idea with several local friends who expressed a desire to go. None of them had ever done more than 10 miles previously. We also had a few who had never ridden before! So, we started training in May of this year. Most had never ridden a cycle with gears and had some hard lessons training in the heat and tackling hills. We were constantly explaining the concept of cadence over speed and it finally sank in "change gears" to accommodate the pedal cadence or burn out your legs! Everyone was improving rapidly and enjoying their rides more each week. We started with 5 mile rides stopping every mile for breaks and worked our way up to 42 miles, stopping every 15 miles, in a morning. There were 11 of us in total, between the ages of 14 and 69. We planned a "smaller'' 100 mile trip from where we live in Fayetteville, NC down to the coast to Fort Fisher. This trip would take 3 days riding -34 miles day 1, 53 miles day 2 and 26 miles day 3 - then we would cycle around town and get in some beach time. there was some apprehension regarding the 53 mile day as we had never done that far as a group in one day. Everyone did splendidly! My parents made t-shirts to commemorate the trip. I wanted to give the group something as well. Something to remind the group of their training, friendship and success in learning to ride well. Then Change Gears came out! I immediately ordered 12 (I needed on to keep clean for my collection). I gave them out on the first day of the trip, just before we pulled out, everyone put them on immediately and was so excited! We wore them everyday, every moment we were riding and really only took them off to swim or bathe. They really loved these ZOX! The day we came home, we took a group photo at the Ft Fisher sign. The group also insisted on a ZOX pic. We all put our hands in a circle (thumb to pinkie) to look live a tire hub with our arms as spokes to each rider. It was a great photo! Yesterday, the group finally decided on a name. We are calling ourselves the CYCLOPATHS. We are all believers so we adjusted the t to represent our mutual faith and used the ZOX photo as a background! These ZOX are so special to everyone. I have given several other ZOX to the individuals in this group in the past. However, having a team with the same ZOX was really a bond builder for them, it was amazing how important such a small thing could be to so many. I share ZOX with friend and family regularly but this...I am so pleased how much these meant to everyone. Best of all, they all remembered to Change Gears!