Bike? Bike? No bike.

Mar. 30th, 2010 02:02 pm
multipurposegoddess: (Default)
So, DH took the day off today for Passover, and he's got a convention thing to go to on Saturday, so we decided today would be our Saturday as far as having a weekend day when we could do stuff together that isn't laundry and whatnot. We planned to get in a bike ride, which, for one reason and another, we haven't done in over a week.  

Of course, it's raining off and on, so that's a complication.

After my chain ring bent, we had time to wander around REI while the shop worked on it, and I picked up some strap toeclips and a rack. I decided I'd best get them on today, as otherwise I could see me stashing them on a shelf and never actually getting them  on the bike. So, that took a  while. DH did his pre-ride maintenance and helped me. Everything fits and I can carry groceries, my stylin' Ultimate underseat hydration system, a lock, my alien tool, and a pump. So yay for that.

We set off, and I send DH ahead as I am slightly nervous about the toe clips. I used to ride with clips and liked them a lot, but they got lost in one of the moves and I've been without, and these are different, so I'm not completely confident that the muscle memory is there for quick release of my feet. So I'm pedaling along, mostly thinking about my feet, and I notice that DH is pulled over at the end of the block. His chain slipped and got wedged into the crank. We couldn't pull it out or even really turn the pedals, so we walked the bikes home to work on it.

Took some doing, but we finally got the chain free. It's damaged, so no ride until we get that taken care of, I guess.
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Mar. 21st, 2010 06:30 am
multipurposegoddess: (Default)
What was happening with me yesterday? Oh, right:


  • 14:05 Bent my chain ring. Managed to get the bike ridable enough to get home, so that's a win, I guess. Now to the repair shop...#fb


    • Bought the bike at REI, so we brought it back for a repair in case it was under warranty. It wasn't, but the repair was only $60. Of course, while they fixed it, we wandered around shopping and spent another $200 on stuff we didn't exactly need but sort of do...like a second pair of bike shorts for DH so we can ride and do laundry on the same day, and a pannier for me so I can grocery shop via bike, that sort of thing.

    Speaking of, we are planning on biking to the grocery store today, as soon as I get over my post-lunch lassitude. Of course, we have no need of groceries today, but still, proof of concept.

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Mar. 19th, 2010 06:30 am
multipurposegoddess: (Default)
What was happening with me yesterday? Oh, right:

  • 08:08 Reset my alarm for "apparent sunrise", actually woke up about 5 minutes before. Way better start to the morning than getting up in the dark.
  • 10:48 Once again, my neighbors parking in front of my house has denied me the services of the street sweeper. Annoying.
  • 13:42 The ride that was a doable challenge on Saturday, easy today. After 4 days of not doing much, certainly not biking at all. Hm.

    • We're going to try a longer ride today, at Linear Park which gives us 5-7 miles of bike path with only occasional need to cross a road. It feels a little silly to load the bikes onto a car and drive to a place to ride our bikes, but I'm afraid that that's the practical thing to do today. We may be able to ride from the mall to the vegetable patch, which would be pretty cool.
  • 15:02 Good lord. Came home to find a HUMMINGBIRD in my kitchen. That's a new one. Finally got it to fly out the front door. #fb

    • So weird! It was buzzing at the window over the sink, which we fortunately never put the screen back onto after we had that sparrow in the house that decided the iron work above the sink was the best place to roost. Unfortunately, even with that window open we couldn't convince the hummingbird that that was the way out - the activity of opening the window chased it into the living room where it decided the picture window would be a good escape. Which it would be, again, no screen, so I opened that and the bird moved over to the front door - the wood door was open with just the screen door shut. DH was able to open the screen door without alarming the hummingbird, who flew outside and sat in the tree. Whew!

    I don't know how it got inside. The aforementioned sparrow was caught and brought in by a cat, who let it go again inside (she had to meow at me to let me know about her prize and dropped the bird, basically). I don't think that happened with the hummer - that would require that one of the cats caught it, brought it in and lost it again without injuring it, and then went back outside and forgot about the bird. Not one of those things is likely and all three would have to have happened. The ways it could have gotten inside on it own are (a) through the cat door, which just makes no sense but it's not technically impossible or (b) through the back door, which would mean the hummingbird for some reason traversed 12-15 feet of covered patio to get to the garage door and then came 6 feet or so through the garage and for some reason cam all the way into the kitchen. Maybe gathering spiderwebs? I don't know, I've never seen one come more than a foot into the covered patio, but it's the most likely scenario.

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Sep. 23rd, 2009 06:30 am
multipurposegoddess: (Default)
What was happening with me yesterday? Oh, right:


  • 13:51 So much easier to ride the bike when the back brake is not constantly engaged! And I go faster. Amazing! #fb

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When H took his cycling class on Sunday, after only a couple of hours the instructors realized that the back brake was tweaked and was constantly pressed against the back wheel, so they disengaged it completely and he just used the front brake.

After he told me that I kind of remembered the nice bike tech at REI telling me something about the back brake when they tuned it up for me, but I decided at the time that it wasn't that important (I'd dropped enough money on the tune up to not want additional work on the brakes and I wanted my bike back and I could still ride it, it just took more work, but more work just means a harder workout, right? I think that was my reasoning) and I was mostly using it on the wind trainer anyway so a little extra resistance was easy to ignore.

I had forgotten all that by the time I took it out to ride on the street and only made a mile and a quarter round trip, very slowly, and wore myself all out. Thought I was just extremely out of shape, which was not exactly wrong, but not all that accurate. We decided to take the bike down to a little used parking lot over by the boat ramp yesterday afternoon so H could practice without worrying about traffic, etc., and I rode down and back, about a mile each way, and it was like no distance at all, and I went almost twice as fast without hardly trying. Neat! I may try riding to the grocery store today, it's only 2 miles each way. I was kind of waiting until I was finished adding time to my daily dog walking to work on biking, but I'm kind of excited to try it...
  • Current Mood: pleased
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Just like Riding a Bike

Sep. 22nd, 2008 02:57 pm
multipurposegoddess: (Default)
FINALLLY got back on my bike. I got it tuned up, what, two months ago? Longer? I still haven't found my computer, and I do like my gadgets, but I'm managing ok without it. I really miss my toe clips. i may have to try clipless pedals, but I'm still afraid of them.

But, toodled around my neighborhood without falling over or crashing. Even rode on the street, which I have never liked doing (dedicated bike paths are the best, sharing with walkers and skaters and so forth also okay, but cars make me nervous) but it was really no problem. There's so little traffic around here, at least on a weekday. I'm hoping I will be able to work my way up to handling more trafficky scenarios as I up my mileage.

Felt good. I was completely unable to stay in my target heart rate zone, but I never felt like I was sucking wind or pushing myself too hard, so I'm not gonna worry about it. If I don't see improvement with regular rides, I'll worry. Didn't get overheated at all, which was a nice surprise. It's only 85, but any kind of exertion often makes me feel the heat acutely. Hooray, breeze!

The plan is to ride every day in the morning, go for a walk every evening. One day I will need more of a workout than that (I hope) but for now it will suffice.

Now if I can just manage to get the office tidied up I will be batting 1.000 for the day.

Edited at 5:51 pm: Yeah, that's not happening. Nap is more urgent.
  • Current Mood: pleased
  • Current Location: that same old liveseat where I always am
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