Skip to main content

Bike Ride

(photo from PhotoXpress)
My cold seems to be over...not so bad. On Wednesday I pulled a bicycle out of the shed and took it to the bike shop to get air in the tires. Thursday, I took it out for a ride--first time on a bicycle in at least twenty years. You know how they say that you never forget how to ride a bike though.


I had a bike as a kid, of course. As an adult, I got a ten speed bike for one of the 30's birthdays from my first husband. We did some riding with the kids and all, but I never really did get the hang of shifting the gears. The bike pretty much stayed in third gear. When I tried to change a gear, as often as not, the chain would fall off. Being able to change gears is actually a very desirable feature when riding in Vermont--the Green MOUNTAIN State. I spent enough time pushing that bike up big hills that I finally figured I should walk and leave the bike at home.


The bike here has maybe twenty-one speeds and it's actually easy to shift, but now I realize I don't really understand enough physics to appreciate the subtleties of all those gear ratios. It's flat here so it doesn't really matter that much anyway.


And it's true--you don't forget how to ride in terms of the very basics--balance and pedal. What you do forget about is how riding a bike uses completely different areas of muscles than walking and it makes your butt pretty darn numb.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 5, 2010 at 8:28 PM

    About a month ago My Grand Girl wanted me to go on a bike ride with her...It had been years since I had been on one...I am so fat I could not throw my leg over the seat.....I had to lay the bike down and stand across it and then sit it up....It was just as bad as I remember it being years ago...When I stopped I was able to get off of it fine, I just could not get on it....Maybe it was a mental thing...

    ReplyDelete
  2. LindaFebruary 5, 2010 at 8:51 PM

    No one ever loved their childhood bicycle more than me. I had a little dog that rode in with me everywhere in the bicycle basket. There is no flat space around me now so riding a bike now would be tough. That was the only bicycle I ever owned so riding one with 'speeds' would probably be beyond my comprehension. Every child should have a bicycle.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Arkansas PattiFebruary 6, 2010 at 7:05 AM

    Aw, I miss riding a bike so much. I rode all the time in Florida, nice flat roads but here in the Ozarks, like you were in Vermont, walking is the only way. Enjoy.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I appreciate readers' comments so much. You don't even always have to agree with me.

Popular posts from this blog

It's TIme

 It's been a while since I have posted anything and even my reading your posts is falling by the wayside. I am in Florida now. I have a yard where little attention was spent on landscaping for the past years so I am slowly and (somewhat) methodically addressing that. I also volunteer to work at the pollinator garden and the edible garden I helped install at the UU grounds and I took over the volunteer job of cleaning out the overgrown community garden by my neighborhood mailboxes. The neighbor who was doing that got sick and could no longer attend to it. It's a bigger job than I'd thought at first -- not only overgrown with weeds, but the plants that are wanted there are in life and death competition for each others' spaces. And two walks a day, morning and evening, so Levi can keep up with addiction to canine social media and a daily rousing came of stick or ball midday take up another chunk of my time. I have a weekly meditation group that I co-facilitate, and my own
10 comments
Read more

New Furniture

 We went shopping for a new couch. I liked this one, the first store we went to. Of course it would be an impulse to buy the first one so we trekked around to other stores -- something we liked more, a better deal? No surprise that we ended up going back to that first store the next day and purchasing that couch for our living room. Also a matching love seat for the den where we watch TV. Because I had replaced my old love seat with two recliners. We couldn't keep three households worth of furniture after all. Well, my recliner was not big enough to accommodate both Levi and me. Poor boy had to watch TV from his bed on the floor. There! This is much better! Spoiled much? The little tail on the floor belongs to his toy squirrel, Buddy. It's like having a toddler with the need to be picking up toys or risk tripping over them. But his very favorite play thing is that bathmat that can be found anywhere but the bathroom floor.
10 comments
Read more

Walking

 I have always been a walker. Now that I have a high energy dog there is no excuse for not getting out there. And the weather is not an interfering factor here. Early morning and early evening are our preferred times so even when it gets hot we should be okay. We can get quite a long walk going around the neighborhood, greeting neighbors out working in their yards or walking their own dogs. But the landscape changes quickly just beyond the confines of the housing developments. It could be described as natural Florida or as sites of future housing developments. I do prefer the first option. And I really enjoy being out in natural areas so I often opt to head to a nature setting. I would have liked to put a picture here. Unfortunately my iPhone has made a unilateral decision. It will no longer be sending my photos to my computer. Why? I have no idea. However, we may be walking along happily enough -- me listening to the birds or trying to identify wildflowers and other plants while Levi
10 comments
Read more