Service Time

The trusty steed is in the shop. The Rocket will get a good going over by my favorite bike mechanic. Addtionally, and more importantly, lower gears. That should help with the hills and let me ride more and farther.

Keep on spinning!!

A Lazy Man's Lament

Old man winter has returned to the Rockies. He's not returned with a vengence, just with enought vigor to be uncomfortable. The lazy Guy has let this discourage him from riding, two days in a row.

Another Tuesday in paradise

Whew!!

Today's ride: 4.01 miles in 30 minutes of riding for an average of 8 miles per hour. Total ride time about 42 minutes.

All my rides so far are out and back. Back today was into an 8 to 10 mph head wind. With my fat out of shape body that about killed me. I stopped twice to just blow and let my heart rate slow down.

It was amazing how much that helped. Every time I'd stop it was because I just couldn't push the pedals around any more at all. After 5 or 6 minutes of deep breathing and resting I could just fly, for a while.

All in all, not too bad a ride.

Have a happy day! Remember the wheels go down and be safe out there.

Inspiration

If you're feeling down and need some inspiration to ride check out www.crazyguyonabike.com . March and April seem to be the hot time for riding the Adventure Cycles Southern tier. There's "Dave, Pat & Ruby On the Southern Tier - '07", "Follow the Pink Panther ..... Across the Southern States .......", "The Wild Bores Take On the Southern Tier", and "A Recumbent Ride On the Southern Tier".

These are just the ones that I'm following. While I was looking them up for this post I saw several others. So when you're feeling blue check out crazyguy!!

Now, keep the wheels down and be safe out there!

Monday, monday...

You should ride as nearly every day as possible! Boy did I find that out the hard way this morning. Today's ride: 3.1 miles in 24:24 for an average speed of 7.7 miles per hour. As usual it took about 1/2 mile to work the kinks out and to be able to pedal smoothly. After that it just hurt the whole way. Yesterday was fast day at church. I fasted. I suppose that didn't help todays ride either. But what ever the cause this one hurt.

I had a new experience today. I fell over (again). But this time I couldn't get off in time so I landed on my right hand and elbow. No damage, except to my pride. I bought new sneekers this weekend. I thought since both of the other pair had multiple holes and the sole of the right one was beginning to peal off I should probably replace them. Well as I started this morning I felt myself falling to the right. I tried to get my right foot off of the pedal, no luck, my shoe strings were caught somewhere. So over I went.

Anyway, keep the wheels down and be safe out there!!

Musings and ramblings...

This would be my brothers and sisters. I'm the old guy on the far left. As you can see we're mostly weight challenged. This has ever been so for me since about 30.

The problem is that I like to cook. And worse yet, I like to eat what I cook. Of course that wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't a pretty good baker. Even that could be fixed if I wasn't exercise adverse. Alas, the only exercise that I like well enough to continue is biking. Hence the Rocket.

Let me tell you about some recent rides. This will bring us up to date. Besides, I didn't ride today so there's nothing "current" to talk about.

Last Friday evening my sons and I took our first "long" ride. It was a whopping 4.65 miles! I hadn't ridden that far in about 12 or 13 years. My two little boys (Paul, age 10, and Robert, age 8) had never ridden a bike so far. [Sick, huh. Oh well, give us time we'll get better.] We rode down along side the Ogden airport which is just north of our house. The ride was a challenge. Paul wanted to ride faster, FASTER dad! Robert was having trouble keeping up, he is kind of small. So we rode down to our turn around point near the north end of the airport and started back. Robert finally had had enough and called for a rest. What a fortuitous circumstance. Just after we stopped Paul looked around and pointed to the sky, "Look!!" As we looked up there were 14 sky divers getting ready to land just to our west. We sat on our bikes and cheered and yelled and blew our horns. The last two parachutes were tandum jumpers. We were close enough to listen to the new jumpers hoot and hollar about how much fun they were having as they were coming down. It was a very, very cool thing to watch.

The other story is simpler. Tuesday morning I went out for my first solo ride. I left the house about 6:00 a.m. and rode the same course as Friday evening. It started out cold, but, as promised in the Utah State Bicycle Commuters guide, quickly warmed up. The neat thing about this ride happened just after I crossed the rode to the airport. As I was riding I was busy paying attention to the car passing me on the left. Just after he passed me I looked around and there, looking at the strange apparition pedaling past in the dark was a small coyote. He just sat there and stared at me. You could almost see the wheels turning inside his little head, "What the heck is that strange red thing rolling down the street? I've never seen anything like it before." It was very cool to be so quite and so much a part of the scene that he didn't spook, but just sat there and watched me pedal by.

That's enough for now. Remember, keep the wheels down and be safe out there. Until next time, see ya!

The first blog day

Well I did it. I've started a blog. Weird.....

This blog will follow my transition from a fat couch and computer potatoe to a svelt bike commuter that rides in almost any weather.

I currently have about 250 pounds hanging on a 68 inch male frame. Walking up more than two flights of stairs winds me. A few months ago I had to climb 5 flights of stairs. When I got to the top I had to sit and blow for 10 minutes before I could go into the room of the Temple where I was headed without causing the room to echo from my very labored breathing. This had to stop!!

So this year I bought this:

This is a Rans Rocket, a short wheel base recumbent bicycle. I have fully outfitted it for commuting. I have a high and low beam headlight, a bell, a horn, a tail light, a rear rack with luggage, and a hydration system for those long summer rides.

So far I have about 20 miles on the bike. I am amazed at how terribly out of shape I am. My goals are: 1) to ride 5 or more days a week, 2) to write about every ride, 3) to be commuting to work 3 days a week before 15 April 2007.

Thanks for reading. Please have a safe and happy day!