I have only put gas in my car once this summer, and then only because my $1.50 per gallon Safeway fuel rewards were about to expire. Normally I ride my bicycle everywhere.
I just had to drive across town to pick up something heavy, and by the time I got home an hour later I was totally pissed off about all the traffic lights and stupid drivers.
On Thursday I bought a new road bike, and am headed over now to Whole Foods to pick up lunch for the kids. That will ease the pain – assuming I don’t flip over the handlebars like I did last weekend ;^)
Ain’t good to flip over the handlebars!
Biking is great, but be careful. All of us want to keep enjoying this blog! And there’s not going to be a “new team” to replace you if you bite the asphalt or run headfirst into a huge pine. And be careful when winter comes along when you ski the “cliff routes” or otherwise known as kamikaze skiing at Taos. Check out the sheer virtually interminable cliff of this, even the “safe” way down would put your life in jeopardy: http://www.skitaos.org/
Today is a good day to be out. I biked around/pulled my son this morning to cheer on/fuel my wife on her long run. I don’t think I can afford Whole Foods though…
-Scott
How’s your fingers Steve?
I used to cycle a lot when I was younger, can’t do it now as an inner ear infection has ruined my sense of balance, I now do a lot of walking which is enjoyable but in a different way from cycling.
May I assume you have a bike helmet, Steve?
If you fill up less than once every 3 months, you might want to invest in some Sta-bil for your car, to help prevent varnish deposits in your fuel system.
Another strategy is to only fill the tank half-way, so that you have to get gas twice as often.
Modern gasoline has very poor shelf life, probably a single digit number of weeks. Diesel fuel stores better than gasoline, but still under six months.
Cool bicycle-bus. http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/04/bus-cycles-to-converge-on-convention-cities/
I’d be happy to pedal. I can burn 400 Calories in 30 min at moderate effort, 450 at hard effort.
Steve has inspired me to begin biking. I picked a vintage 1976 Sears Free Spirit 10 speed. It’s a fixer-upper but I enjoy tinkering so I have it working pretty well. I have great trails nearby and really enjoy it.
I’m always on the look out for roads with less traffic. Long weekend in parts of Canada, and did an 90 km ride this am on a pretty good rural road, very little traffic, occasional deer/hawk etc….beautiful ride heading towards the rockies, 25C…loved it. Get back closer to the city … and full alert!! You never know…
On Friday evening was doing another 60 km ride, and had to pull over…10 very big, full velvet Mulie Bucks….yumm…..got several photos of them…all just feeding on some of the grain crops… beauty site…
When my front wheel jammed into a crack hidden in a puddle, I shot over the handlebars and landed prone on the road. I had time to watch ALL of the wheels of an 18-wheeler pass within inches of my face and only an inch from my left hand. It was not my life that passed before my eyes, it was all kinds of possible, painful injuries or death. Dying in a gutter …
That was in 1980. ‘Haven’t ridden a bike on a road since; only in parks. Cars have lights, are more easily seen, and have air bags. There really are very few old bicycle riders. Ever wonder why?
Just needed to mention a tragic event here in Virginia. A 24-year old woman was riding her bike at 10:oo PM on a narrow, unlit, steep uphill road and was killed by a hit-and-run driver (who has since come forth). She apparently had a helmet and lights on her bike. They didn’t help. She “loved to bike” and rode this route “all the time” from work. I ride all over this city and never go on that road, even in the daytime. Please be careful, Steve!
The year was 1992 in late September. I was perhaps a mile or two short of 50 miles on my bike that day and was crossing some railroad tracks, the depressed, trolley track type. I had crossed them many time before without incident when suddenly I went over the handle bars and crashed on the road. I was dazed and it the worst pain of my life. Following that I was in a sling for 6 weeks and then from November through March in rehabilitation for a fractured left humerus ( three pieces ). My orthopedist’s first words to me that I recall were: “You will have pain in your arm for the rest of your life but you should have full function if you do what I say.” He was right. I can use the left arm fine but the upper arm still aches and I can’t sleep on my left side since. I still rode my bike for the next ten years but stopped when I had a second episode of being run off the road by vehicle, a large pick-up truck. I was covered by road rash and tore my right quadriceps. That muscle tear took a year to become pain free but the depression in the muscle is still visible as an asymmetry between the two legs.
For more than 20 years I put on about 4,000 miles of road biking per season but I lost my nerve with the last accident. My wife still rides even though she was nearly killed when hit by a car driven by a man who said he was blinded by the sun and didn’t see her as he made a left turn and last August she fractured her left elbo when her chain broke causing a crash. Our son still rides and has since he was a teenager. He tried out after an invitation to be on the Junior Olympic Team when he was 16 and has been a college team bike racer and currently is a member of an AUDI sponsored bike team. Luckily, he has escaped any serious crashes so far.
To ride a bike is to take a risk, I have discovered.
Dan Kurt