Bike report from suburbia
It's a Saturday, so after spending several hours doing my usual geek stuff, taking my usual morning run and various other regular activities I decided to finally install the cycling computer I bought several months ago.. Once installed, of course I had to try it out.Normally you would see me zipping down hills on trails in a park somewhere, but due to my inherent laziness (whole five minutes to put the rack on the car!) I just went for a spin in my local suburbia. In misty rain.
I learned some new things from this experience.
- You can do all sorts of weird things in Connecticut suburbs, from walking your cat on a leash to painting tiger stripes on your car -- but strap a camera to your back and take out the two wheeler for a spin and you're the weirdest thing since the Keebler elves.
- Do not mess with large women exiting large shopping plazas in large cars for they are angry and have more bulk than you.
- Twelve miles on a bike is a lot easier than twelve miles running and really shouldn't be considered exercise.
- Bugs look much scarier at a distance of five millimeters from your sunglasses.
- Riding on sidewalks is only marginally safer than riding on streets. On one you have 2-ton vehicles driven by insane soccer moms - on the other - seventy year old angry people with canes, hatred in their eyes and crackling backs. You do the math.
- One big, barking dog with lots teeth provides about 5 more miles per hour in your average speed (see, that cycling computer is handy).
I think I'll do it again tomorrow.
Comments
Sounded like a fun morning :) I'm glad the nice surroundings of a forest are only 15 secs away on bike for me.
Posted by: Derick | August 30, 2003 05:07 PM
Like your photo of you and your blog site. You sound like a cool person.
Posted by: Chris | August 30, 2003 06:37 PM
Average speed to my daughter's school: 13 mph
with my 10 year old daughter: 6 mph
I'm trying to instill the sense of awareness in my daughter for biking around. The sense of "what's behind me", and "don't assume the right of way". She probably thinks I make this stuff up.
And remember, those idiot mommies in Ford Excursions (on cell phones, spacing out, doing makeup, shouting at kids, etc.) going 4 blocks to school have *3* tons.
Watch out for those grates. They're very effective at stopping (the bike, not you :-)
Posted by: Daniel | August 30, 2003 07:33 PM
Twelve miles on a bike is a lot easier than twelve miles running and really shouldn't be considered exercise.
------------------------
Them is fighting words...;-)
It really depends on the terrain though. Twelve miles mostly downhill is defintely not excercise, twelve miles up a steep road however...
------------------------
Riding on sidewalks is only marginally safer than riding on streets. On one you have 2-ton vehicles driven by insane soccer moms - on the other - seventy year old angry people with canes, hatred in their eyes and crackling backs. You do the math.
------------------------
I personally prefer to take my chances on the roads...
Posted by: Techie2000 | August 31, 2003 01:00 PM
yeah - really, try riding 12 miles from my house. The first 6.5 miles will get you to the top of the Appalachian Gap. I believe that it's at least 1000 ft of climbing! :-)Then there's the hairy descent... (all in good fun though as I haven't even attempted it yet this year but hope to before the snow falls)
Posted by: julie | August 31, 2003 03:41 PM
Heh. Put me on the list of "dem's fightin' words" cycling lovers....
Try 40 miles, with hills, several of which have a mean pitt-bull chasing your ankles, then come back to me about it not being exercise. :)
Posted by: Karl | September 1, 2003 11:21 AM
okay, okay, I concede! I will not blaspheme against biking again, cry your pardon.
Posted by: kasia | September 1, 2003 02:29 PM
If it helps any, I should add that you could still probably RUN up the App Gap faster than I could do it on a bike at this point in the season! But you would be amazed at my ability to keep my bike upright at such slow speeds on such steep grades :-)
Posted by: julie | September 1, 2003 09:58 PM
How do you set up comments in a blog? I've got a blog at blogspot but can't figure out how to set up commenst section.
Posted by: Sam | September 22, 2003 02:10 PM