The author of BEATING UP DADDY and ''The Other Worst-Case Scenario'' web site shares his random insights.
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Thursday, November 12
Posted
Thursday, November 12, 2009
by Gene
One of the many, many things I didn't get to talk about during my extremely lengthy hiatus from blogging regularly was the part where my bicycle up and walked out of my back yard one evening, on account of my not giving it enough respect, i.e, neglecting to chain it up to the porch.
This was something of a problem because as you must know if you're a regular reader, I commuted to work on that bike. And I was not in a position to buy a new one, unless I settled for an extremely shitty bike.
And I didn't want to settle for an extremely shitty bike. But waiting until funds were available meant a good three or four week gap between when the bike ran away and when I could invest in a decent new one. So for that period, I walked to work every day instead.
Which was sort of not bad. I lost a noticeable amount of weight-- I walked over 100 miles in about 24 days-- and the weather was never so bad that it didn't make sense to do it. But, my feet were perpetually developing new problems, and after a while it just got really, dreadfully boring. Plus losing 120-140 minutes a day to just walking, while healthy, was really taking away from my time to do much of anything else.
Plus I missed bike riding.
A couple of weeks ago I picked up that new bike. It's one especially designed for a sport called "cyclocross", which is an event that makes competitors throw themselves down mountains on their bikes, jump hurdles while carrying their bikes on their backs, ride through mud, and so on. So bikes for this event are super-light, very durable, and as close to all-weather as they come.
And fast. Holy crap. I have a coveted pair of drop-down handlebars now (the previous bike had upright handlebars) so I can now lean forward, or, waaay forward, and not only get out of the wind-- I deal with a lot of wind on my commute-- but lower the center of gravity, making everything I do that much faster and easier.
Now if I can just survive the training. I was no longer in bike shape when I started using it, and worse, my legs are in a slightly different position, which means I'm using different parts of my leg muscles than before, so I'm suddenly retraining almost from scratch.
But: bike fast. Good bike.
Comments:
I recently picked up a dual-purpose bike myself. I hadn't done it in the time since I moved to my new locale simply because… well no good reason really. But now that I bought a house that's a short ride from work, I used that as an excuse to get the bike.
Good times! Not as commute-oriented as your ride though, I'm maybe a solid mile from work.
Had my own set of issues not that long ago actually. The bike I got is a Specialized brand mountain bike, mid-range mountain/trail bike. Has tunable front suspension that's basically just a coil spring under pressure.
this pressure was relieved. Take a good look at your forks next time your on your bike. Then imagine a coil spring being suddenly shot out. You'll get the idea.. :-0
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Good times! Not as commute-oriented as your ride though, I'm maybe a solid mile from work.
Had my own set of issues not that long ago actually. The bike I got is a Specialized brand mountain bike, mid-range mountain/trail bike. Has tunable front suspension that's basically just a coil spring under pressure.
this pressure was relieved. Take a good look at your forks next time your on your bike. Then imagine a coil spring being suddenly shot out. You'll get the idea.. :-0
