Illness - Day 38

Seriously, Body, WTF?

It's been over a month since I was first afflicted with my strange illness. It was pretty rough for the first few days, causing a generally-non-medicating person to down the maximum dosage of my prescription painkillers every day. After the first few days it's been fairly mild, and I have to say that it's been quite a while since discomfort has kept me up at night. Still . . . after two courses of antibiotics, X-rays, ultrasounds, blood tests and urine samples, I am no closer to an answer as to what this actually is/was. And worst of all, it's not completely gone. Just last night and even this morning I've had a few pangs of pain. So what gives?

I'm about to head out of town for the holidays, so I haven't visited the doctor again since finishing my latest two-week course of antibiotics a few days ago. I'll do that when I get back, at which point he may suggest that the next step is IV antibiotics as an outpatient in a hospital. For how little this illness is currently affecting me, the investigation and treatment sure seems to be taking up a lot of my time! Good thing I don't have to pay out of pocket for all this - thank you universal healthcare!! xoxo (That's right, I'm making out with universal health care, deal with it.)

The last time I saw the doctor he told me to avoid bike-commuting for the time being. Despite for the most part cautiously heeding his warning, I did go for a 8-km round trip ride to the bank about a week ago just to try out my new studded tires. It was AWESOME! I fishtailed a couple times, but for the most part I felt more steady on my bike than I have in my car on these snowy roads. I was dismayed at how out of shape I was, though. MAN, riding in the snow sure takes it out of you! Especially when you haven't exercised in a while.

When I get back from the holidays I'm getting back on the damn bike. Clearly, not biking hasn't made my illness go away, so I might as well take a stab at whether biking will help me out. Research has demonstrated that exercising through illnesses such as colds can boost our immune system and that being sick doesn't impact our exercise performance. So, who knows? Maybe getting back in the saddle is just what the doctor ordered . . . except he didn't . . . but I'm gonna do it anyway!

Today is my last day at work before the holidays, and then I'm off until the 5th. So long, suckers!! That is to say, have a fabulous holiday season and a wonderful new year, and I look forward to joining the ranks of my fellow winter bike-commuters again in January!

Keep it real, my friends. And have a safe, warm, and happy holiday.

Illness - Day 23

As much as my lovely pain-y goodness has decreased substantially since the first few days of illness, these damn symptoms will not go away. I went back to the doctor to complain that the treatment so far isn't completely working, though things have improved. He ordered some more blood and urine tests and x-rays as well as an abdominal ultrasound. The tests came back suggesting some kind of kidney infection, so he prescribed a two-week course of antibiotics to kill that off. I've started on those, but my symptoms are still not completely gone. Hopefully by the time I'm done with the antibiotics it'll all be over. Still, my ultrasound appointment isn't for another 9 days, so there's also a part of me that's hoping there's more to this story that we haven't figured out yet given that my symptoms are atypical for a kidney infection.

I was halfway out of the doctor's office when I turned around suddenly. "I'm a bike-commuter, and since I'm feeling a lot better do you think that it's okay for me to get back on my bike yet?" I asked hopefully. The doctor thought about this for a moment, then said "Well, you are ill, even if you don't always feel that way. Also, I'm worried that the seating position on a bicycle might exacerbate some of what's going on there. This is a pretty virulent strain of bacteria that you have." Damnit! No bike-commuting yet.

I did find one little trick to get in a bit of exercise, though. I've just discovered that I can park my car at a public park about a 3.25 km (~30 min) walk from the university for free. So I park there, walk the rest of the way to work, and then walk back to my car at the end of the day. It adds almost a full half-hour to my commute each way, but at least I get an hour of exercise and a solid 6.5 km walk in each day. That's a whole lot better than nothing at all! And walking is so low-impact I can't imagine it being deleterious to my health! Don't I feel clever . . .

Pleurisy - Day 8

In my last post I noted that I've been tentatively diagnosed with pleurisy, an infection of the outer lining of the lung. I was put on antibiotics and anti-inflammatory painkillers to help with this, and I was also given a one-week trial pack of acid blockers by one doctor who was convinced it was not a lung issue, but rather a stomach issue. I've been taking all of these drugs consistently, even though I'm fully convinced it's not a stomach issue (I mean, really, stabbing pain directly under my left breast and in my upper dorsal rib cage that is worsened by breathing but unaffected by food/water intake is a stomach issue?? But I digress . . .).

By the middle of last week I was starting to feel a bit better. I was well enough to get my daughter back from her father, who was taking care of her during the worst of my illness. I shoveled my walkway on Thursday, and in anticipation of eventually getting back on my bike I took it into Revolution Cycle for winter tire installation and a tune-up. I went back to work on Friday.

My shoveling handiwork, and it's already snowed again - winter has arrived!

Perhaps all this optimistic activity was a bad idea, because overnight on Friday I was awakened with severe pains again. I was unable to fall back asleep because the pain was quite intense, so I spent the rest of Saturday exhausted and fighting dull chest aches punctuated by a couple waves of moan-worthy pains. Uh oh. It's back. Shitballs - and I thought I was getting better!

My daughter in her snow suit, pink toddler-sized balaclava, two layers of mitts, and snow boots. She's super-impressed.

Despite having finished my course of antibiotics and starting to feel worse again, my parental guilt pushed me to suggest a short outing to the park with my daughter today. After all, yesterday had been a "pajama day" that nearly drove me crazy because all I wanted was to nap but all I got was a toddler demanding my constant attention and energy. I thought life might be better if I wrestled her into her snow suit and took her to the park to burn off some of that energy. Besides, it might be a good test to see how my lung would hold up in the cold air.

Yep, still painful. And wrestling her into her epic snow outfit was really not worth it. She didn't even want to get out of the stroller, I basically had to tip her out to force her to play a bit. So, I just did a lazy two-block round-trip walk to the park and pushed my daughter around on the swings, being out of the house for a grand total of 45 minutes, and this caused some sharp chest pains. This was nothing compared to a 30-40 minute bike commute each way to work. Sigh! I want to be well enough to hit the road again! Hell, I want to be well enough to have the energy to do something other than sit on my ass and watch TV.

The new studded tires, just waiting to be tried out.

Man, I can't wait to try out those kick-ass studded tires . . . but it looks like I'm going to have to wait a little whole longer yet.

Pleurisy

Gather round, children, and let me tell you a little story. A terrible, terrible story.

I spent some time Saturday afternoon doing some grocery shopping and getting ready for a Bad Taste Party - you know, a party where people dress up in ridiculously offensive costumes and have a great time. While I was shopping I started developing a bit of a headache and my joints started feeling a bit sore - that achey body feeling that sneaks up when I'm either getting sick or that lingers while I'm getting over an illness. By the time I got home, I was starting to notice some discomfort in the left side of my chest. No biggie - I got ready for the party, packing an overnight bag in case I needed to stay over at my friend's house (yay, not having to come home at a decent time to relieve a babysitter means that I can actually drink at parties!).

At the party I was amazed to find that not only was my Bad Taste costume matched by someone who had come up with the exact same idea, but I was floored to discover that two party-goers managed to out-Bad-Taste me! I was thoroughly impressed, and thoroughly grateful that cameras were not allowed at this party. I spent the night joking and talking and partaking in libations, but all the while the pain in my chest grew and grew. By the end of the night I couldn't stand and chat in the kitchen with the other guests - I leaned heavily on the granite-topped island and rubbed at the pain that was spreading around my ribs into my back. I grew paler and paler as the pain increased.

"You don't look well," my friend told me after we said goodbye to the last party guests and headed upstairs for bed. She made up a hot water bottle for me, which I hugged greedily against my sore body, and offered me an over-the-counter acetaminophen painkiller with codeine in it. I downed the maximum dosage and gingerly tucked myself into her comfortable guest bed, pressing the hot water bottle against the ever-increasing pains. Despite being exhausted, and despite the codeine pills, the pain made it difficult to fall asleep, and when I did finally slip into slumberville I awoke three hours later with stabbing pains in my chest, back, and shoulder. I took more painkillers, but it took another two hours before they kicked in well enough for me to catch another measly couple hours of sleep. This wasn't good.

In the morning, my friend convinced me to see a doctor, and that I promptly did. The pain level was still increasing, and my breathing became restricted and shallow as every normal inhalation resulted in stabbing, crippling pain. Over the next two days I would see a total of four different doctors, get lab and x-ray tests done, and be given several possible diagnoses ranging from acid reflux to kidney stones. By the end of this nightmare, I was finally diagnosed tentatively with pleurisy - an infection of the protective lining around my lungs. It can cause excruciating pain, especially on inhalation, and it may have been precipitated by the sinus infection I was rocking two weeks ago.

I've been on antibiotics and prescription painkillers since Sunday - the day that a momentary lapse in self-medicating caused a couple hours' worth of pain I can only describe as similar to a strong labour contraction that never let up. It was crippling, I could barely breathe, and when I started to cry from the pain the involuntary gasps for air that my body took in between sobs left me feeling like I was being stabbed between the ribs each time. This caused more painful strangled sobs, which led to more awful gasps of air that led to worse pain, and so on and so on. Luckily, I did eventually arrest this terrible cycle, and within a couple of hours the painkillers kicked in. Nevertheless, I arranged for my daughter to remain with her father in Calgary while I recovered, and I continued to stay in my friend's care in case an emergency trip to the hospital was necessary.

I've missed two days of work now, and I will likely be back to work on Friday. I'm still in pain, but it's become manageable with medication and rest. The big question now is when I'll be able to get back on the bike. After all, the whole problem is my lungs and - well - the whole act of breathing. As the temperature drops to wintry freezing levels and I spend more and more days sitting on my ass "resting", I know that getting back on the bike again will be a slightly punishing experience on my lungs. So, when will I be able to do that again? From the vantage point of this moment, sitting at my computer and feeling the rumbling of my inflamed lung tissue rubbing against itself with each breath, having to press firmly against my chest to stem the pain that still comes in waves, I'm thinking it's not going to be this week.

We'll see what the future holds. As I continue to recover and regain my capacity to breathe properly again, I will let you know when I'll be able to get in the saddle again. Until then, I'm afraid this blog is likely going dark.

So long, my friends. I will see you on the other side!

Slow Poke

WEATHER THERE: sunny, -5C (-7C with windchill), 5 km/hr cross/tailwinds

WEATHER BACK: clear, 4C, 9 km/hr tailwinds

This morning was chilly. Like, people were scraping frost off their windshields and I arrived at work with numb, bright red thighs kind of chilly. I doubled up on my cotton gloves and wore a turtleneck underneath my waterproof shell, but I was still so under-dressed and cold that I felt like my legs were barely moving. According to my bike computer, I averaged about 3 km/hr less speed today than I have the last few days, barely breaking over 21 km/hr. Hitting that minuscule hill at the end of the High Level Bridge felt like punishment, and by the time I crested the hill and made my way up the stairs with my bike in tow, I was panting so hard I felt like I might pass out. Luckily I didn't, but with another cyclist right on my trail going up the stairs I felt some serious crimson-faced embarrassment over how slow and plodding I am today.

I suspect I am not the only one so affected by the drop in temperature, though. Overnight, the number of fellow cyclists I passed on my journey dropped in half - I only saw six people out this morning, and all of them were on the High Level Bridge and on campus. I didn't run into a single cycling soul out there in the west end or downtown. It's getting to that time of year, it seems - where the sane people start to put their bikes away and opt for the bus or the car. And the rest of us - the crazy winter-bikers - start doubling up on socks, breaking out the winter boots and lobster gloves, thermal underwear and ski goggles.

At least it was nicer on the way home. Still, there's a chill in the air - the chill of impending winter. It's upon us, my friends. The snow is bound to come any day now.

To Diet or Not to Diet

WEATHER THERE: sunny, 0C (-3C with windchill), 9 km/hr tailwinds
WEATHER BACK: clear, 5C, 8 km/hr headwinds

I took a long hiatus from cycling over the summer, and after two months without being on the bike I returned to it this past September. However, it's been on a much more part-time basis, as I only work three days per week now instead of five. As much as I've intended to bike to work and use my office for dissertation research on my off days, that hasn't really panned out, so I've been stuck cycling only three days a week and not five so far this year.

Last September, I was amazed with myself for having lost 10 lbs in a month without dieting, just by starting to bike-commute. When my cycling efforts were no longer enough to continue the weight loss, I started dieting too. That's when everything kind of went off the rails. You see, when a person has been overweight since the age of five and going through bingeing and dieting cycles since before she hit puberty, that person can develop some mighty strong and mighty negative associations with dieting. Namely, that restriction leads to starvation which leads to bingeing which leads to weight gain, and inevitably this cycle feeds itself (no pun intended) as the weight gain fuels motivation to diet again.

I mention this because over the past few months I've been at a loss as to what to do. I know that dieting will only lead to negative consequences for myself, but I also feel compelled to do something drastic to reverse the weight I gained when I stopped biking for two months. And it's not a small amount - it took me nine months to lose 40 pounds, and three months to put back on 20. One the one hand, I feel a desperate desire to reverse that trend in a hurry. On the other hand, I know that a lot of that recent weight gain is the result of me trying to diet in lieu of cycling, which inevitably led to bingeing, which inevitably led to more dieting . . . well, you get the idea.

So - the moral of the story is that dieting doesn't work for me. Never has, never will. The question, then, is what to do to lose weight in a healthy, sustainable way without feeling like I'm dieting so that I can avoid falling into the binge-diet cycle again. Any suggestions? I'll keep thinking about it and I'll get back to you on this . . .

Bum Sores

WEATHER THERE: clear, 8C, 11 km/hr tail/crosswinds
WEATHER BACK: sunny, 9C, 21 km/hr cross/headwinds gusting to 30 km/hr

My ass bones are sore. I guess not biking for a few days in a row gives my bum the opportunity to heal from the pressure sores I get from bike-riding. Since returning to the saddle on Wednesday, then riding for three days in a row, I found that by the end of the day today my bum felt raw like I'd just been paddled in some old-school fraternity initiation. It wasn't pleasant. I'm definitely glad that I get to rest a bit over the weekend, so that hopefully by the time I get back to the saddle again on Monday I'll have healed enough for it to no longer be sore, but not enough time has passed for the "ass callous" (the immunity I develop to the saddle pressure with regular riding) to fade completely.

I've heard that some cyclists - though I suspect it's more for the long-distance riders - wear padded shorts. That would be helpful, no doubt, for minimizing unfortunate ass-sores, but I just can't see pouring myself into those skin-tight bum-goblins twice a day for my meager 16-18 km round-trip commute. It just doesn't seem worth it. Besides, I suspect that wearing those when it's not absolutely necessary might eat away at my already threatened dignity. Maybe someday I'll become a long-distance rider and invest in a fine pair of ass paddings . . . but not now, and not anytime soon.

Speed Demons

WEATHER THERE: clear, 4C, 28 km/hr cross/headwinds (gusting to 39 km/hr)

WEATHER BACK:sunny, 13C, 8 km/hr cross/tailwinds

"Wow, you're fast!" I blurted out in awe.
"Haha, thanks," my fellow cyclist replied, "I'm not that fast, though - there was one guy who passed me back there going a lot faster than me!"
"Yeah, I saw him too, that was crazy!"
"He must've been in quite a rush."

I had this conversation at a red light today on the way home from work. I felt compelled to comment on this fellow cyclist's speed because I had been clipping along 100 Avenue at what is probably my top speed on a flat stretch of road - 27 km/hr - when this guy blew past me and quickly vanished out of sight around a bend in the road. I caught up to him at the light a couple blocks later and started the above conversation with him. He seemed like a nice guy - it's always nice to chat at red lights, it's one of my favourite things about bike-commuting!

Yesterday, the same thing happened (minus the red light and the conversation). Along 100 Avenue, while I was making personal land speed records for myself, two guys passed me at a speed I guesstimate to be around 30-35 km/hr - likely even faster! That is unheard of to me! How the hell do they do it? They're not even in spandex. It kind of blew my mind, and made me feel like a chubby slow-poke.

I missed bike-commuting last Friday because that sore throat I had at the beginning of the week turned into a sinus infection that really knocked me out by the end of the week. I wouldn't have gone to work on Friday if I didn't have two important things to attend to, so I drugged myself up with daytime sinus medication and hauled my sick, sorry ass to work in my car. Yesterday was my first day back to bike-commuting after being sick, and my third day of bike-commuting after returning from Mexico. So, basically, I haven't done a lot of biking over the past two or three weeks.

The illness and the vacation and the lack of exercise have left me feeling kind of out of shape. This feeling has been really driven home by how many people who keep passing me at such extraordinarily greater speeds than I'm going. I mean, these people aren't just passing me, they're leaving me in the dust! And it seems like it's everywhere - those guys on 100 Avenue two days in a row, a middle-aged lady on the High Level Bridge yesterday morning, even some dude riding on the sidewalk without a helmet was going faster than me the other day! What gives?? The weirdest part about all this is that according to my bike computer, I'm going as fast or even faster than ever. I usually top out at 21-22 km/hr on flat stretches of road, and the past couple of days I've been managing 24-27 km/hr along certain parts of my commute (in particular, the High Level Bridge and 100 Avenue). I've been a regular Speedy Gonzales!! So why are there so many people who seem to have come out of nowhere who are apparently rocket-powered?

Go figure. I guess I should just be grateful that there are so many cyclists still out on their bikes at this time of year. It is, after all, November, and it's been beautiful weather. Perhaps I should focus more on that - and also on my record speeds (yay me for hitting 27 km/hr today along 100 Avenue!) - and less on comparing myself to other people.

I daresay that's good advice in all aspects of life, not just biking.

A Sad Day in Cyclingville

WEATHER THERE: clear, 3C, 11 km/hr tail/crosswinds
WEATHER BACK: sunny, 11C, 5 km/hr headwinds


It is a sad day in Cyclingville, my friends. I recently read an article in the newspaper describing how the driver of a pick-up truck that smashed into a group of six cyclists on the side of a highway in Quebec in May - killing three people - will not be facing any charges. Alcohol was not a factor in the crash, though the driver was apparently a volunteer firefighter on his way home after a night shift so perhaps exhaustion played a part.

It's difficult to understand how a driver didn't see a pack of six cyclists travelling on the side of a highway in broad daylight (the accident happened at 10:00 am in May). What is most shocking is that absolutely no charges are being laid - not even careless driving - after three people have died. It angers and saddens me that there will be absolutely no consequences for whatever mistake led to this tragedy. I also feel angry and sad about what message this sends to cyclists: ride at your own risk, and if you get hit and killed it's your own damn fault for being on a bike in the first place. I know that highways were built for cars, but multiple modes of transportation do exist, so peaceful coexistence is necessary. As it is, the vehicle is the unchecked bully of the road and the cyclists are their innocent victims - often with fatal consequences. Yet time and again, the bully just keeps getting a slap on the wrist - if anything at all. What a sad, awful day for cyclists everywhere.


A newspaper article describing the original crash can be read here.

Fighting a Cold

WEATHER THERE: cloudy, -5C (-9C with windchill), 9 km/hr cross/headwinds
WEATHER BACK: cloudy, -4C (-9C with windchill), 13 km/hr head/crosswinds


I'm not going to lie to you, my bikey friends, it's been a rough couple of days. With the first snow of the year coating the ground and turning to fine ice and thick slush in some areas, it generally makes the bike-commuting a little slower and a bit more difficult. Add to that the fact that both my daughter and I appear to be getting sick - we have been since we got back from Mexico. My throat is sore, I have a whole whack of very charming post-nasal drip, and I've got sinus pressure behind my eyes. Luckily, my breathing is fine - no stuffy nose, no throat-so-raw-it-burns-to-breathe. The problem comes more from sleeping - I've had to drug myself with Tylenol Sinus for Nighttime in order to fall asleep at all because my throat is so uncomfortable, and then once I'm finally asleep my daughter is waking up complaining of (in whining/crying voice): "boogers, mommy!" and "ears dirty!" (what does that even mean??). For the past two days, my mild discomfort during the day has turned into fever-like symptoms in the evening - alternating between chills and sweats, feeling achey - and I feel even less capable of dealing with the midnight wake-ups of my daughter than ever.


At work today, I was operating somewhere around 65-70% of normal capacity because I'm feeling unwell but I'm not full-on sick. Still, I'm utterly exhausted, and I'm cold, and I was a bit under-dressed for how cold it really was out there for my bike-commute. And I know from experience that being under-dressed inevitably causes my muscles to feel slow, heavy, and easily worn out - on top of whatever effect being sick might also have on them. All this doesn't help when I'm being faced with the first icy embraces of winter. And it's only October, damnit!! I could maybe accept it more if it were November. We didn't even have a proper dumping of snow last year until DECEMBER! Why, oh why, did winter have to come so soon?



Sigh . . . I'm still hopeful it'll melt and we'll have a few more days of milder weather before winter is here to stay. I just hope this early dip in temperature doesn't mean we're in for a rough winter.

First Snow Day

WEATHER THERE: light snow, -1C (-6C with windchill), 18 km/hr tail/crosswinds

WEATHER BACK: cloudy, 0C (-5C with windchill), 18 km/hr head/crosswinds

The pool at Melia Puerto Vallarta - the all-inclusive resort I was staying at October 15-22

I spent October 15-22 in Mexico, where it was 33C every day, no wind, with bright sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. I basked in the heat and sun like the wild iguanas I found sunning themselves on secluded rocks on the resort grounds. I came back to Edmonton late Friday night, wishing I didn't have to leave beautiful Mexico so soon. But of course, as all good things do, my little vacation had to come to an end. I returned home and spent the weekend getting my life back in order and getting ready to return to work. That included spending part of Sunday getting my bike ready for a week of bike-commuting after being in storage for several days. I was kind of getting excited to get back on the bike - it had been a while, and I missed it. Besides, I had been riding Mike the Bike for the few days leading up to the vacation and I was looking forward to getting back on my fancy new mountain bike.

That excitement didn't last too long, mind you, because this morning I woke up to this:

Snow. Snow on the ground. Snow falling in wet icy flakes from the sky. Just . . . snow. Now, granted, I kind of like the snow and I do actually like winter riding, so this really isn't such a bad thing. Still - it's a far cry from reading a Stieg Larsen thriller on the beaches of Mexico in 33C heat. Also, I don't have my studded tires on so I was a bit weary that I might have a very cold, wet crash at some point today. Luckily, I didn't.

The most remarkable thing about today was that I expected the first snowfall of the year would force the belle-weather cyclists to put their bikes in storage and take the bus to work - but that wasn't the case at all! In fact, I ran across no less than 10 other cyclists on my way to work today, which is actually even more than I usually do! It was incredible! Perhaps I'm not the only one who enjoys a nice winter ride.

Still . . . I miss Mexico.

Recovery Period

WEATHER THERE: sunny, 3C, 8 km/hr tail/crosswinds

WEATHER BACK: sunny, 14C, 8 km/hr head/crosswinds

Last Friday:

"Are you ready to get your ass kicked?" my friend asked me as she helped me collect two pairs of hand weights, a floor mat, and a step with two risers.

"I was born ready," I responded. We set ourselves up in one corner of the gymnasium, surrounded by 33 like-minded people trying to get fit over the lunch break. We only had forty minutes, so every moment would have to count. I felt ready, I felt prepared.

I was not.

In fact, nothing could have prepared me for this. It was gruelling - the only moment that we stopped from doing squats was to switch it up into lunges. We did all this while doing presses, rows, and curls with the hand weights. The instructor further demanded that we then lift one leg, and do it all on one leg and then the other, to really drive home the punishment - oh, and I guess also to engage our cores. My eyes stung with sweat. My friend and I would stare at each other with horror and disbelief - and even a touch of anger - clouding our faces as we sat out repetitions fifteen through twenty. My entire body was jelly by the end - and my poor, large, inefficient thighs got the worst of it.

I figured joining a resistance class once a week over lunch would be an excellent work-out addition to bike-commuting three days a week. Three days a week I'd get in some cardio, and one day a week I'd do some weights training. Sounds well-rounded, doesn't it? It didn't occur to me that the resistance class would be like a bootcamp. I also didn't realize it would be a whole lot of lower-body resistance work, which can be problematic for me with my bad knees. And not just that - it can interfere with my bike-commuting, as I found out this week.

Luckily that class was on a Friday, and I had a whole long weekend to recover from the horrors of those damn squats and lunges. I managed to bike home Friday afternoon, but the healing of the thigh injuries hadn't fully begun at that point. By the time I woke up Saturday, I couldn't walk without locking my knees to prevent putting any weight on my thighs. Sunday, it was even worse. I stretched and massaged my thighs daily, but to no avail - walking, going up and down stairs, bending down to change my daughter's diaper, even the act of sitting down were all made virtually impossible by the pain I was in. On the holiday Monday I started being able to unlock my knees, but just barely. Tuesday, I decided to skip out on bike-commuting for the day because I was still hardly able to walk, and I know that cycling uses a whole lot more thigh power than walking does.

Finally, today - five days after the original trauma - I got back on my bike. It was okay - I felt a bit out of shape, a bit rusty, and I made sure to cycle one gear lower than I usually do because my regular gear scheme was too much for my still-aching thighs. I made sure to do a bit of extra stretching once I got to work. Oh, my poor body! What have I done to you?

I keep reminding myself that the good news is that all this pain means that I'm building a lot of muscle in those thighs, and that will give me added power in my cycling efforts. Maybe hills will become less daunting now. Maybe I'll start walking around with proper cycling thighs - massive, muscular, intimidating. Hmm . . . yeah, maybe that last part is less desirable . . . but still, there IS an upside! I'll just keep my eye on that upside while I wimper and massage cooling gel into my aching thighs tonight.

Hand Signals

From http://www.diycycling.com/2009/07/13/riding-the-road-simple-rules-and-common-sense/

WEATHER THERE: mainly sunny, 9C, 5 km/hr tailwinds

WEATHER BACK: sunny, 20C, 17 km/hr crosswinds

I pulled up to a busy four-way-stop intersection, and as I waited my turn in the line of cars to turn left, an older gentleman in a truck passed by me going the opposite direction.

"Use your hand signals," he warned me out of his open window as he passed. At first I didn't catch what he said, but as he drove away his message sunk in.

Now, as a bike-commuter I've done enough research to know what the hand signals are for turning and stopping. The problem is, a lot of the time they're very difficult to use. Case in point: as the older gentleman drove away, I came up to the intersection with the intention of turning left. It was one of those awful, awkward stops where I had just come to a full stop and jumped my feet off the pedals and hit the ground, just as it was my turn to go. So I had to quickly hop back on and try to make my way through the intersection as quickly as I could. These sorts of inelegant stops are especially difficult to signal on, especially on my road bike where I'm pitched forward and have to support more weight through my hands. Taking one hand off the handles to signal - thereby shifting the balance of my weight and my body aerodynamics, and having to transfer significantly more pressure to one side of the handlebar than the other - puts my already faltering balance at stake. Other situations where I don't often hand signal include while riding on particularly bumpy/poorly maintained roads, and if there is any smooth ice present on the road surface.

The gentleman's advice should have been well heeded, however. As I awkwardly stumbled up to the stop line, determined that it was my turn, and started into the intersection, the car directly opposite me at the four-way-stop started going as well - perhaps assuming that I was going straight instead of turning and therefore believing he could go through the intersection at the same time without incident. Now, a cautious driver really ought not to proceed through an intersection until the vehicle whose turn it was before them is already most of the way - if not all the way - through. And drivers should be especially cautious when dealing with the rights-of-way of pedestrians and cyclists because fatalities are much more likely in a crash between a car and either of the latter two than with two cars. So I won't take ALL the blame for the confusion at the intersection, since the driver of the car should have waited to see where I was going before proceeding into the intersection. However, I really should have signalled, too.

Thankfully, nothing happened - I slowed down just in case the car was going to continue through the intersection, the car stopped to let me pass, I went through without incident, and the car passed along behind me. Still, it was one of those moments that really demonstrated to me the importance of hand signalling - especially given the timing of that sage advice given by the passing gentleman in the truck.

Argumentative

WEATHER THERE: sunny, 6C, 5 km/hr tailwinds
WEATHER BACK: sunny, 23C, 17 km/hr tail/crosswinds

Walk? No, bike! No, wait, I should drive! But should I shower before I go to work, or after I get home? I wonder if I should bring lunch, or buy something there. How will I pick up my daughter from daycare after?

This whole morning I wasted my precious brain energy (or brainergy, as it were) going over these rather meaningless questions. Right up until the last moment, I argued with myself about the best option to take.

"Okay, I'm definitely going to shower, but then if I shower I won't have time to walk. And my hair will look so nice and clean, do I really want to mess it up with bike helmet sweat? I should definitely drive - just take 'er easy."

(Twenty minutes later)
"The shower didn't take THAT long, maybe I can still walk!"

(Five minutes later)
"What was I thinking, I'll definitely drive."

(Two minutes later)
"NO! It's so beautiful out! Why waste such a beautiful day driving - and spending $15 on parking - when I can just bike? Come ooooon!"

Another two minutes later, I was out the door, climbing onto my mountain bike to go into work for the afternoon. And am I ever glad I biked today - it was so beautiful out! And after having been riding the road bike for the past few days, I had forgotten how smooth the ride on the mountain bike was. Smooth, and surprisingly fast. I've been feeling really out of shape lately, and yet I was able to cruise along at 22-25 km/hr on flat straight roads and got up to 37 km/hr on a slight descent. I even maintained a speed between 18-20 km/hr going up the hill at the south end of the High Level Bridge. That HAS to be a record for me, Little Miss Hills-Make-Me-Puke.

Huh. I've been feeling so slovenly lately. I guess getting back into biking is improving my fitness anyway, even if it doesn't feel like it. And even if I continue eating unwell (but COME ON, the Halloween candy is out in stores already! Don't judge me!). If only I weren't so tired all the time (thank you, nightmares and midnight tantrums, for introducing yourselves to my daughter's life these past couple weeks!). If I could actually get a full night's rest, everything would seem even better than it already is . . .

Slog

WEATHER THERE: sunny, 5C, 15 km/hr tail/crosswinds
WEATHER BACK: sunny, 15C, 26 km/hr headwinds gusting to 40 km/hr

I'm tired. My motivation is low. It's windy and chilly outside today, and all I want to do is curl up with a hot chocolate and a book while wearing pajamas, and in this way spend the entire day to myself. My mind keeps bouncing between my different priorities - working on my dissertation (reading, writing, analyzing, thinking, creating, organizing, editing), trying to deal with the behavioural problems that are starting to show up in my daughter, and somehow finding whatever remains of my productivity to meet deadlines at work. It's a slog.

And riding home into strong wind, swearing under my breath the whole time, is not a great way to end the day after all that. Oh well - it IS only thirty minutes of my day, I can handle it. And besides, after coming home to a hot dinner, a nice tea, and a hug from my daughter, everything seems a whole lot brighter. And, I have to say, it DOES help knowing that I don't have to go in to work tomorrow! Oh part-time job, I love you!

The New Trailer - And My First Fair-Weather Fall

WEATHER THERE: light rain, 10C, calm wind

WEATHER BACK:cloudy, 14C, 9 km/hr crosswind

On one of my days off last week, I turned weeks of indecision into action: after researching the relative pros and cons of various ways to transport my child with my bike (rear-mount child seat, front-mount child seat, trail-a-bike, and single-child trailer), I bought a single-child trailer from Mountain Equipment Co-op. Though I've used it very little so far - just a short test ride last Thursday (short because of the unfortunate Brazilian that prevented me from biking much at all last week!), another short ride to the park on Sunday, and to-and-from daycare today - it's been great! It's easy to attach and detach from my bike, it's much slimmer than my double trailer and that makes it lighter and less likely to get caught on a curb or on the door frame going in and out of storage, it's more comfortable for my daughter because she's more cocooned in it, and it's sturdy as anything.

Case in point: when taking it for a test ride on Thursday, it had been raining that day and I approached a part of the road where I had to get up onto the sidewalk. There was a big, deep puddle covering the edge of the road where it met with the curb. When I tried to ride up over the curb onto the sidewalk, my wheel caught on a deep pothole that was covered by the puddle, and I was thrown from the bike. I tumbled off, landing on the sidewalk (thankfully not in the puddle!), my bike fell over, and as soon as I landed I looked back in horror to see if my daughter was okay. Sitting calmly in the trailer, she looked at me with some semblance of surprise and said, "You okay, mommy? Mommy, you okay?" The trailer hadn't budged an inch.

I was okay - just a small scrape on my leg, nothing serious, and surprisingly not even a scratch on my hands or a bruise anywhere else. So I mounted back up and we continued on our merry way, none the worse for wear. If she were on a trail-a-bike or in a child seat, she would likely have sustained some kind of injury - or at the very least, been scared by the fall and perhaps developed an aversion to biking with me. Thankfully I went with the trailer instead! No injury, no scariness - just a fun ride.

I suspect that the Velcro used to secure the screen and rain cover will wear out sooner than I want it to, making it impossible to close after some use, and that might prove to be an annoying issue. I might have to sew snaps into the material when that time comes. However, that point hasn't come yet and hopefully won't come for a while. This trailer will hopefully get us through some winter commuting without issue - and, given its performance so far, I'm looking forward to it!

Too Much Information

From http://thegloss.com/beauty/the-winner-of-the-worst-bikini-wax-story-contest-is/

I won't go into the details about how wondering to myself, "hey, I wonder if I should try getting a bikini wax before my trip to Mexico?" somehow turned into accidentally receiving an excruciating Brazilian wax. Nor will I go into the indignity I experienced as I paid a whopping $65 for the honour of said procedure, then waddled awkwardly back to my car like I'd just done a five-day stint at a working ranch. I won't even describe how terrible it feels to wear pants right now.

However, I will offer this word of caution for you, my fine friends: if you are thinking of undergoing some personal landscaping down yonder and you are a bike-commuter, ensure that you have alternate modes of transportation for a couple of days, because:

WAXING and CYCLING do not mix.

Just sayin' . . .

Giving Thanks

WEATHER THERE: clear, 10C, 9 km/hr cross/headwinds
WEATHER BACK: sunny, 27C, 21 km/hr cross/tailwinds (gusting to 30 km/hr)

A return of warm, sunny weather. A productive day spent working on my dissertation. I even got a few snuggles from my typically too-busy-to-snuggle daughter. Despite feeling fairly beat tonight, I'd say the day couldn't have been any better!

I need to appreciate these days more. Take in the beauty of the fall colours, appreciate the clear roads and warm temperature and the sun on my face. It's the perfect time of year to be bike-commuting because the timing is just so that I'm biking into the sunrise every morning and soon I'll also be biking into the sunset at the end of the day. The weather is perfect for biking - not too windy, not too cold, not too hot. And all the fall colours are out in full force. There is so much beauty to take in, so many things to be grateful for, that sometimes you really have to take a step back and appreciate it.

So - deep breath in, then breathe it out - thank you, world!

A Weird Week

After making homemade hot cocoa with dinner, and spending the evening in cozy pajamas under a fleece blanket while reading, I would have thought that sleep would come easy to me on Monday night. Alas, I had a bit of trouble falling asleep and didn't drift into slumber until sometime after 11:00 pm. By 1:00 am, I was awakened by cranky whining sounds emanating from my daughter's room across the hall. These little sounds came in fits and bursts, and when I would call out to her to see what was the matter, she would stop. Or she would ask for milk, which I would deny her because of her pesky habit of taking the lids off her sippy cups and spilling milk all over her crib. Or she would make some other kind of request that would similarly be shut down. This continued on an off for a couple hours, and between each bout of sadness I remained awake and listening for the next one.

"Moooommmmmy," I heard her wail. "Moooommmy, I'm all wet!" My gritty-with-exhaustion eyes turned groggily to my clock - it was 3:30 am, and I'd barely slept all night. I just wanted to ignore her and try to fall back asleep. "Moooommmmmy, there's pee in there!" Ughhh. I forced myself out of bed to confront the pee-soaked scene.

My daughter keeps doing this - pulling her pajamas off, pulling her diaper off, and peeing in her bed, then spending the rest of the night grieving the loss of her beloved (pee-soaked) blankie which I am forced to throw into the laundry. Because of this fiasco, I didn't sleep a wink for the rest of the night. Tuesday was a write-off. Even when I tried to drop my daughter off at daycare in the morning, I was called back 20 minutes later to pick her up because she was so exhausted and cranky that the daycare couldn't handle her. We spent the day at home, and I went through the day in a zombie fog from lack of sleep. And yet, strangely, I wasn't able to nap at any point.

The whole rest of my week was thrown off by this. Tuesday, typically a work day, was spent at home, so I didn't bike. Wednesday I met a friend for lunch then went into work for the afternoon where I sat barely functioning in front of my computer trying to look like I was being productive when I couldn't possibly have been. I didn't bike that day either. Thursday I took my daughter and myself for travel vaccines then stayed home for the rest of the day while we recovered (she had a slight fever). Once again, I didn't bike. And now it's Friday, and it's only my second full day at work all week, and I'm still feeling groggy and sleep-deprived (though certainly improved from Tuesday!). Using my sore vaccinated arm as an excuse, I didn't bike today either.

Wow. What a crappy week! I only biked once. I've been functioning at the cognitive level of the undead since Tuesday. And now things are starting to pick up - I have projects to complete at work, and a dissertation deadline looming in the next week - and this whole week has basically felt like a write-off. Sigh!

I know these kinds of weeks happen . . . to other people . . . Oh, okay, FINE! They happen to me too. And it's okay. Still, it's hard to feel good when I'm feeling this tired and unproductive. Huh. No wonder I hated my mat leave so much!

A Hot Cocoa Kind of Day

WEATHER THERE: rain, 3C, 9 km/hr crosswinds

WEATHER BACK: drizzle, 6C, 21 km/hr crosswinds

I rode to work in the rain, splashing my way through deep puddles and getting myself soaking wet. My feet were cold all day as my wet socks remained damp and frigid in my work shoes. I wore my ugly black water-resistant shell and my double-layered warm-up pants that are the most water-resistant pants I own, and my hands were protected by thin, tight running gloves layered underneath a pair of extra large cycling gloves, and despite all this I still arrived at work damp and cold and tired.

It was hard to be at work today. I got some important things done but I wasn't particularly productive, and I felt uncomfortable and cold and tired all day long. A dark grey sky forced me to rely on the buzzing fluorescent lights above to help me see - no natural light to work by today. Counting the hours, the minutes, the moments as they passed. Dreading the cold, wet ride home almost as much as I was looking forward to leaving.

Tonight, I'm making some damn hot cocoa after dinner. It's been a hot cocoa kind of day.

First Frost

WEATHER THERE: sunny, -2C, 9 km/hr tailwinds
WEATHER BACK: sunny, 9C, 9 km/hr headwinds


My breath fogged the crisp morning air and the remnants of overnight frost clung to patches of roads and sidewalks. Frozen dew still encased delicate blades of grass, who undoubtedly shivered patiently as they waited for the distant morning sun to awaken them from their icy brushes with death.


The golf course at the bottom of the river valley below 100th Avenue had lost its rich depth of colour and was now a pale green beneath a cover of frost.

Brittle yellow leaves descended from their branches, whispering their way to the road below. A delicate rainstorm of backlit brilliant yellows, a glowing golden burst of beauty and colour before everything turns white and stark.

Despite wearing new cycling gloves, my fingertips felt cold and numb. It took a few minutes of being indoors after changing into my work shoes before my toes warmed up again. A year ago today, it was 30C outside, a welcome extension of summer. Today, it's a high of 9C and our first morning of frost cover. Winter is on its way.

Fall is always too fleeting.

26" Studded Tires

DAAAAMN!!
Check out that bad-ass with the Ice Spikers on her shoulder!!

Are you as impressed as I am?

Admiring my new purchase

Consider yourself warned, winter: not only do I have a mountain bike this year, I've got these deadly studded tires, too!

I just picked up a pair of 26" x 2.10 Schwalbe Ice Spikers, with 304 tungsten-carbide spikes and a seriously aggressive tread. These suckers will get me to work on days when even my car won't be able to handle the snow. At 1.065 kg each, they're definitely not for use in fair weather conditions because the rolling resistance and weight of these bad boys will be quite a hindrance on bare pavement or light snow. Those milder winter days are what my existing 700 cc Schwalbe Snow Studs are for. I'm feeling prepared for anything now!

Okay, so these tires are expensive and really hardcore - some say they're not necessary for your everyday winter commuter. In response to that I say: I still fell seven times last winter!! And there were days I didn't even bother biking because the ice and snow were so bad. If these tires will help me out in dangerous situations, give me more confidence on the road, and maybe even save my ass from a serious accident - well, then, I'd say they're well worth their price and more.

I'm looking forward to trying them out! Not too soon, mind you . . .

The Open Door

WEATHER THERE: partly cloudy, 6C, 6 km/hr headwinds
WEATHER BACK: overcast, 11C, 15 km/hr crosswinds

Now that I have a strong, sturdy mountain bike as my trusty steed, I've been trying to get back into the habit of hauling my daughter to daycare in the bike trailer. She doesn't mind it too much - sometimes she finds splashing through puddles and going over bumps quite fun - and I'm sure it's great for her to get into the habit of bike-commuting with Mommy. The downside is that it adds a few minutes to my trip compared to driving her there, and dealing with that big double trailer can get quite awkward (which is why I've been seriously contemplating shelling out the - shudder - $300 for a narrower, lighter single-child trailer).

I have to back-track past my house to get to work, and on my way home from work I look longingly to my home as I pedal past it to get to the daycare. Normally this isn't much of an issue, except for the occasional slight pangs of desire I feel at the end of a long workday to stop at my house and be done for the day instead of having to continue on to the daycare. Then again, my desire to take in that glorious sight of my daughter running at me with arms wide open and a big smile on her face far outweighs it and I keep trudging on to get her.

As I was riding home on Tuesday I cast a longing eye towards my house as I was pedalling past it. But something was very different - and quite amiss. The front door was wide open. Robbers!! In a panic, I pulled my bike over and clamoured up the front steps, afraid of finding my house ransacked and robbed. Or worse - finding someone in my house and willing to hurt me to get out. I darted through the front door and looked around the porch.

"Odd," I thought, stopping in my panicked tracks, "They didn't touch the road bike." Mike the Bike was parked up against the porch wall where is always was, completely unmoved from when I saw it last. That would have been so easy to steal! Why didn't they take the bike? Looking around, I noticed that, in fact, nothing looked out of place on the porch. Well, okay, maybe not here - but I have more valuables inside the house. I peered through the window into the house and saw my purse hanging off a chair back right in front of me. It was still there, untouched. Nothing was out of place inside my house, either.

So - not robbers, then? What the Hell could have happened? Then it occurred to me:

"Oh CRAP! Did I leave my door open this whole freakin' time??" Maybe after fighting the bike trailer out of the front door in the morning (where every day it succeeds in ripping more chunks off my weatherstripping because it's too damn wide for the doorway), then bringing my bike out, and hooking them up, and putting my daughter in the trailer - maybe I just forgot to go back and shut the door. Maybe I just mounted my bike and took off. Could I have possibly been so careless? Me, who has had a different home broken into? Me, who is usually fairly paranoid about that sort of thing and always keeps all windows and doors locked even when I'm at home?

I thought back to the events of the morning and realized that it may have indeed been the case. My daughter was being difficult and putting up a fight about going into the trailer and going to daycare all morning. I remembered her aiming her yelling, thrashing anger at me as I was strapping her into the trailer, even as I feebly tried reasoning with her about how fun daycare was going to be and how much she always likes it once she's there. Maybe I was distracted, tired, fed up with her tantrums. Maybe I was just focused on getting her to daycare on time. So I mounted up and pedalled away, still trying to reason with her over my shoulder, while the front door to my humble abode remained wide open like an invitation. And it remained like that for the next nine hours.

The most remarkable thing is that nobody stole anything. Not my bike on the porch, not the purse just on the other side of the inner door, nothing! Kudos to everyone for leaving my stuff alone despite my incredible safety blunder. I feel a lot better about the trustworthiness of my neighbourhood now. And that sound you just heard - that was my faith in humanity jumping up a notch.

The Bike Computer

WEATHER THERE: overcast, 6C, 11 km/hr headwind

WEATHER BACK: overcast, 11C, 11 km/hr tailwind



If you've been reading my blog since last year, you may have noticed that the format has changed a little bit. I no longer keep my faithful readers abreast of how long my ride to and from work takes me, or what I wore, or even what bike I rode. I figured that a lot of that information was either unnecessary or redundant, given that if the information was pertinent it would come up in my blog entry anyway. As for the timing, I've made a very conscious decision not to time myself this year. Inspired by the casual pleasure-riding a former colleague at my internship did, and finding that I was getting too competitive with myself about how fast I could make the journey, I decided it might be best to relax and treat my commutes like less of a chore or a competition and more of a casual pleasure ride.



So, no more timing! I have a computer on my bike that is tracking how many kilometres I traverse, how much time I log on the bike, top speed, average speed, things like that. I'll be curious to see how many kilometres and how much time I've logged at the end of the year! I think my total time is already somewhere around 3 hours, between a couple bike-commutes and a weekend ride with my daughter in the trailer. Sometimes I reference the computer as I'm riding to see how fast I'm going up a hill (so far, it's usually around 13-15 km/hr), or what speed I'm at when I'm cruising along a flat stretch of road (usually between 19-22 km/hr), but I'm trying not to focus on it too much. As long as I get to work on time and I'm enjoying myself, that's all that really matters. Or, well, at least that's what I'm trying to tell myself . . .

The First Ride of the New Year!

WEATHER THERE: Overcast, 9C, 11 km/hr tailwinds
WEATHER BACK: Raining, 15C, 13 km/hr crosswinds


What an auspicious (re)start to biking! The first day of the week - Tuesday - was my first day of my new job, and given that I hauled in an entire suitcase full of decorative knicknacks, textbooks, framed art/degrees/certificates, and dissertation-related documents, I figured it would be best to drive. I spent most of the first day arranging my little office into something I'd be comfortable living and working in for the next nine months. I didn't do any sort of nesting like this when I did my internship last year - and who knows - maybe that contributed to me feeling so burnt out by the end. So, I determined to make a greater effort not to let myself burn out this year. With just a little decorative flair, a few scented candles, and dark-wood-framed degrees and certificates for some narcissistic demonstration of my accomplishments, now I've got a charming little office to call my home-away-from-home! Much better than the industrial chic I'm used to.

Wednesday and Thursday are my days off, and those days this week were spent working from home and attending a few meetings to get my dissertation kick-started again after a year-long hiatus. Between working from home on Wednesday and attending three meetings in three different locations back to back with very little commuting time alotted between each, I was unable to bike for either of those days.

So - Friday! My first official day back to bike-commuting! I took the new mountain bike - name still to be determined - and appreciated the smoothness of the ride even as I encountered roads deeply pockmarked with potholes, small rocks, and numerous puddles. Though it wasn't raining when I left the house in the morning and it wasn't calling for rain later in the day, it had rained overnight and left puddles all over, so I opted to wear my rain jacket. This proved to be a most prudent decision, as the late afternoon sky opened up and started pouring rain just before I left the office for the day. Note to self: always bring rain gear!

I still need to equip my new bike with a bell and lights, and I also just noticed that the bike didn't come with reflectors so I'll have to get those too. I'll also need a reflective leg band to keep my right pantleg off the chain, as the bike didn't come with a crash guard so my pants manage to get sucked into the whirling vortex of the front chain ring more often than I'd like. Despite the rain, and despite how I was panting so hard I kind of felt like puking after cresting the hill at the end of the High Level Bridge, it felt damn good to get back to it today. I know my strength will come back, and so will my stamina, and every day that stupid hill is going to get easier. Meanwhile, I'll get to save money on parking and gas, start my day with pink cheeks and a rosy glow, get some much-needed exercise as we enter into the cold season, and demonstrate to my daughter how natural, easy, and fun daily exercise can be as I haul her to daycare in the bike trailer.

Bike commuting: 1. Driving: 0.

And So It Begins Again! Sort of . . .

WEATHER THERE: clear, 10C, 17 km/hr tail/crosswinds
WEATHER BACK: a few clouds, 14C, 11 km/hr head/crosswinds

What has two thumbs and biked to work today? THIS GAL!! (pointing at self with said thumbs)

Despite having a terrible night's sleep (thank you, daughter, for your multiple overnight snack attacks and at least one bad dream), despite the weather calling for rain today, and despite wanting to be lazy for these last couple days of my internship, I biked today! Yay, it feels good to be back! Well, let me rephrase: it feels like an accomplishment to get back on the bike. And that makes me feel gooood. Here are some pros and cons to my ride today:

Pros:
- the exercise and fresh air really woke me up this morning
- I felt really good about myself
- having recently attached a computer to my bike, I was able to track my speed and ride time, which was really interesting
- I got to put my new bike through its paces for the first time - and the disc brakes are amaaaazing!!

Cons
- more pre-bed prep time required: I not only have to make my lunch for the next day, I also have to lay out my cycling clothes, pack my panniers with my work clothes, and transfer everything from my purse to my panniers
- I had to wake up earlier to give myself more time for the commute
- I'm so out of shape that after climbing the hill at the end of the High Level Bridge I genuinely felt like I was going to puke
- being on a new, unfamiliar seat hurt my ass bones (owwww!)
- my right hand got really numb during the ride - I hate hand-numbness
- when I confessed to my co-workers how much money I spent on my new bike, they were shocked and horrified that I would bring such an expensive bike on campus without first getting it insured against theft, and that left me feeling anxious for the rest of the day about whether my bike would be stolen while I was at work

After riding it for a somewhat extended period of time for the first time today, I have to say I'm a big fan of this bike. The shocks on the front fork make a huge difference in riding comfort, the wide knobby tires make me feel like I can more easily and confidently negotiate the rocky-sandy-dirty piles of crap that coat the edges of the roadway, and it's light enough that I didn't notice a significant difference in efficiency from my road bike. All in all, it seems like an excellent purchase for commuting!

However, I feel like I need to get more prepared before I can really get back to full-time bike-commuting. I will need to:
- invest in a reflective leg band to keep my pants from rubbing against the chains/gears
- move the bell from Eastwood (who is remains broken and unfixed) onto the new bike
- invest in some riding gloves to avoid continued annoying hand numbness
- alter my homeowner's insurance to include my bike so I can insure my new bike against theft

I have to pick up a newly-fixed Mike the Bike from the bike mechanic directly after work tomorrow, and on Friday I have a half-day that involves some moving of things out of my old office, so I won't be biking for the rest of the week. It was nice to get a flavour for what it's like to get back on the bike today, though, and perhaps I'll get back to full-time commuting again next week feeling more prepared, better insured, less ass-sore, and fully motivated! I'm looking forward to it!

Hobbies vs. Relationship

My boyfriend and I recently broke up after dating for about three months. Without either of us really realizing or intending it, our relationship very quickly became a serious, all-encompassing thing that squeezed out time for socializing with our friends and having alone-time. This was more of a problem for me than for him, which caused some friction (perhaps unfairly, as it wasn't necessarily anyone's fault). I suspect it was just an artifact of me having so little time and so much to do that adding one extra thing to my life forced me to ignore other equally important things, and over time that turned into resentment for everything that demanded my time.

Looking back on the past three months, I noticed it was around the start of that relationship that I began to bike less and less. I think a few factors were at play, including the fact that I was starting to feel very burnt out at work and the weather took a turn for the very rainy. Combine those factors with my ex-boyfriend's generous willingness to pick me up from work on days I didn't feel like biking home, my sense of needing to rush home and get everything sorted out before he came over for our late-night hang-outs, and my accumulated loss of sleep (between my daughter's occasional overnight wake-ups, the late-night hang-outs, and our tendency to engage in into-the-night fights when tensions arose) - and you've got a recipe for not biking.

Now, beginning a few weeks ago I had legitimate mechanical issues with my bikes - both of them - and legitimate indecision about what to do with them. Still, I think that if I felt more motivated to bike and felt like I had more time for it, I would have resolved those issues much faster than I did. After all, there was just about nothing that could stop me from biking in the winter months when my motivation was high and I only had three things in my life: work, daughter, and biking. I had a pretty sweet set-up going: I went to bed at the same time every night, I prepared for my next commute in the ample time I had to myself every night before bed, and nothing interfered with my sleep except the occasional daughter's late-night wake-up.

When taken together, all of this has left me to conclude that my former relationship tended to work against my biking habit. That relationship took up a lot of my time and energy, leaving me too crunched for time and too emotionally and physically exhausted to invest in my only hobby. As much as my ex was very supportive of my biking and my other efforts to get healthier, factoring our relationship into my life squeezed out my capacity and motivation to keep doing it. So, now that the relationship is over, I'm elated that I will actually be able to get back to biking again! Huzzah!! Three cheers for silver linings!

I have three more days left of my internship. Then, starting next week, I will be working three days a week at the university and spending the remaining two days a week working on my dissertation. Given that there is a lot of wrapping up I have to do, and cleaning out my office, and transferring my stuff from one building on campus to another, I may not end up biking for another few days. But the moment I get back in the saddle I will be sure to report it here first.

Yippee!! I can't wait!!

New Wheels

Hello friends! Have I got news for you. I am the proud owner of a new BIKE! While I haven't yet named this new addition to my bike family, I must say I've been pleased as punch since bringing her home form Revolution Cycle on Saturday. Oh, and she's a girl - a welcome change of pace from my boys, Mike the Bike and Eastwood. Here are her first pictures:

My new bike: a Specialized Myka Pro hard tail mountain bike.

Accessories include a Topeak rack, front and rear fenders, and a water bottle cage.

Features disc brakes and some front-end suspension that was sorely missing from my previous commuter bike.

Yesterday I went into Revolution Cycle with one purpose in mind: spend more money than I'm used to, and get a bike that's going to handle some rough riding. The sales guy who helped me - Rob - asked me what I was looking for, and I said, "I'm a year-round commuter, biking 16 km a day, sometimes in the river valley but often not, and I want something under $800." He considered this for a moment, then responded, "I can help you with that."

Now, let's not kid ourselves here, I did not end up spending $800. The bike I was originally hoping to get my greasy paws on - the Specialized Ariel - was only available in extra large frames, and I need a small. That wasn't going to happen. He showed me a couple hybrids, but the frames were too big. Then he brought me to the mountain bikes, and that's where I met my new baby. I checked out a couple of the mountain bikes, and this one was out of my price range - marked down from $1,500 to $1,099 - but when I took it for a test ride I fell in love.

While testing it out, I hit as many potholes as I could, rode it off curbs, and tried to reach my top speed along flat, straight roads. I found that it was a fantastic all-around bike for whatever my commute might throw at me. It's MUCH lighter than Eastwood and features a wide range of gears with trigger shifters that got me through the wide range of 24 gears without issue. Because it's light and the tire pressure is high it is quite efficient, which means it can reach decent speed without an epic amount of effort on my part, while the front shocks make it a smooth ride that's much easier on my hands and arms. To top it all off, if I ever do want to try out mountain biking (and I've been thinking about it for a while because it seems like it would be really freakin' fun!!) I've got a really good bike for that. It's versatile, it's built to withstand a rough ride, and it's awfully pretty too. I am VERY happy with my new ride!!

Rob gave me a good deal - we wasn't able to lower the price of the bike, but gave me some deep discounts on my accessories (that were installed without extra charge!), gave me a longer stem for free, and didn't charge me tax. I couldn't be happier with the outcome! I'll have to invest in some studded tires for the winter, as the ones I have currently are 700cc's and my new baby is rocking 28" tires. But at least now I can outfit both Mike the Bike and my new girl for winter riding and get to choose day to day which one I want to ride - the road bike or the mountain bike! Win-win, methinks. Choice is a very good thing.

Update

This is me taking a MEC "Desire" bicycle out for a test drive. Can't say I was a big fan.

It's been too long, my friends! It's been far too long.

Now that it's nearing the end of August and I haven't written a blog entry in weeks, I thought it's about damn time to give you a little update about what's been going on in HealthyBiker Land. The truth is, HealthyBiker hasn't been so healthy lately.

First of all, Mike the Bike has been out of commission since the last blog entry I wrote. So has Eastwood, my $50 mountain bike. I've been hemming and hawing about whether I should get one or both of these bikes fixed, or just buy a new and much better bike, or whether I'd even be biking again come September. A lot of those decisions couldn't be made until I knew what my plans were going to be for the upcoming school year - how much money would I be making? Would I be working full-time? How much time flexibility would I have? All of these factors would impact whether I was biking or walking and what my bike budget might be.

The truth is, it's August - fucking - 24th and I STILL don't know what's going on! I had an interview today for a potential job, I have another one scheduled for next week, I've already had two others (this is all on top of working full-time and being a single freakin' parent to The Tantrum Queen). And as of this moment I am no closer to knowing the answers to any of those pressing questions. This, despite the fact that September is ONE WEEK AWAY.

I can't say that I handle this uncertainty well. In fact, this is the kind of thing that causes me to stress out so much I develop Irritable Bowel Syndrome (that's a fact, my friends: I did actually develop a one-time, months-long bout of IBS while I was waiting to hear whether I was accepted into the PhD program a few years ago - which is, I guess, marginally better than having an intestinal parasite).

This is also the kind of thing that causes me to overeat . . . and by that I mean binge. Hard. That utterly useless coping mechanism, combined with a complete absence of biking and any other form of exercise for that matter, has left me feeling like all the health benefits I gained from the hard work of the past 11 months of bike-commuting has been completely erased by the last six weeks of shitty living. I know I've gained weight - a distressing amount, in fact, given the short time I've gained it in. I feel remarkably unfit. I know all this has to stop - I need to get my eating habits back under control and get back into some kind of exercise routine, like, say, getting back on the freakin' bike already!!!! At the same time, I feel just as stuck about my decision-making abilities today as I did six weeks ago.

While waiting for time to provide me with some much-needed answers, I've been dragging my ass slowly and bitterly to the finish line of my internship (which has been a truly fabulous experience, and also utterly exhausting). Today I spent some time cleaning out my office in between seeing some of my clients for the last time. It's kind of sad because I have to end these relationships, yet it's also kind of triumphant because so many of my clients are doing so much better than they were before that it feels like I'm watching formerly wounded birds fly back into the wild again after a full recovery. It's emotional, and rewarding, and altogether stressful.

I couldn't take the waiting game anymore. I contacted BikeWorks, the awesome do-it-yourself bike shop run by the Edmonton Bike Commuters Society, to see if they would be able to fix Mike the Bike for me. They said they don't operate like that - that a volunteer mechanic could help me fix Mike, but that I'd have to do the work. Since I work full-time and have my daughter on my hip every moment I'm not at work, that's something I just don't have the time to do, but the lovely and helpful Anna from BikeWorks got me in touch with one of the volunteer mechanics who would be able to fix Mike the Bike for a much more reasonable rate than a bike shop service department would charge. So, daughter on my hip and Mike the Bike stuffed into my trunk, I drove Mike out to this mechanic's garage and got a quote - the $300 fix-up quoted by the bike shop was now going to cost me $100. Done deal!

So, Mike is now officially in repair. My front porch seems so empty without his presence. In the meantime, my fingers keep drawing me to the new and improved Revolution Cycle website where they have a list of bikes on sale. It is a very good time of year to buy a new bike, isn't it, my fellow bike-commuters? I have a very good mind to say "fuck it all!!" and just get Mike repaired for use as a beater bike and invest some money on a brand spankin' new general purpose bike. When it would appear that I can get a pretty decent bike for under $800 at Revolution Cycle right now, why the hell not??

I wish I could tell you something about the job situation for the coming year. I wish I could tell you more about what bike I'm going to get. I wish I could tell you when I'm even going to get Mike back. But I can't. So I'll check out the bikes on sale at Revolution Cycle, I'll keep in touch with the awesome bike mechanic, and I'll keep trying to get my life in order for September. And I promise, after that several week hiatus I just inflicted upon you, I'll be very sure to keep you posted from now on!!

Mechanical Update

Last night, in the small amount of time between work and having to pick up my daughter from daycare, I shoved Mike into my trunk and brought him over to the good people in the service department at Revolution Cycle. I pointed out the broken spoke and gave the service guy an overview of the issues, and asked how much it might cost to give ol' Mike a tune-up. The service guy noticed a few issues with Mike that I hadn't: the crank shaft wiggles, the chain has become so loose that it's worn down the entire drive chain to the point that everything will need to be replaced, and the bike is generally dirty and loose and needs a major tune-up. This is on top of fixing the broken spoke and fixing those rear brakes that I so industriously put on all by myself - upside down. He estimated that the whole procedure would end up costing somewhere around how much I paid for the bike in the first place - in the range of $250. I wasn't willing to spend that much on a dying bike, so I asked them to fix the brakes and the broken spoke for $40 and then I'd just hope that Mike would survive til the end of the summer, when I can start walk-commuting instead of bike-commuting.

Mike was ready to pick up today after work, but I already had my daughter (who tends to keep me pretty busy) and I wasn't able to make it there today, so I'll have to pick it up tomorrow. That means I've only bike-commuted one day all week. Then I've got next week - which, by the way, is supposed to be mostly rainy again - and then I'm on vacation for two weeks. Then three weeks of work, then I'm done! Wow. Almost a year has gone by already.

I want to finish out the year with Mike, then retire him and let his creaky, used-up body rest in peace. Maybe I'll donate him to the Edmonton Bike Commuters Society, or keep him around as a beater winter bike. I don't know what I'll do. I just know that July is shaping up to be a remarkably bike-less month. Oh well. I guess there's always August.

Week 46 - Day Three: Rained Out/Mechanical Failure

Yesterday I didn't bike because of the rain. When I drove to work in the morning, I felt small pangs of guilt about leaving the bike at home as I saw a couple cyclists out braving the mild rain that was falling. Throughout the day, as the rain turned into overcast skies, I felt worse. Should I have just braved it myself? Then came the drive home: it was raining hard when I first left work, and torrential downpours came in fits and bursts. There were moments when the rain pelted my car sideways because the wind was so strong. There were moments when I could barely see beyond the hood of my car, even with my wipers going full-speed, because the rain was coming down so hard and fast. There were no cyclists out, no pedestrians. I didn't even see people waiting at bus stops. It was insane. That ride home made me feel perfectly justified in taking the car to work.

Yesterday evening, I spent some time on my bike preparing it for a bike-commute for today: I tightened the headset, filled up the tires, and lubricated the chain, as the last rainy ride washed off a lot of the lube. During this preparatory period, I noticed I had a loose spoke on the back tire. I wiggled it, and it came off - another broken spoke. That would be #7 on that rim. Out of 24 spokes. Now, I knew when I bought that bike that one comment in the reviews was "it's not a curb-jumper", and I've tried to go relatively easy on it as a result. A broken spoke here and there hasn't surprised me. But seven?? Come on!!

I'm right back to that point where I have a serious dilemma on my hands, just as I did a couple weeks ago that last time a spoke broke on me. Do I replace the spoke, as I eventually did last time? Do I refurbish the whole bike (i.e., replace the chain, replace the back rim, give it a tune-up and a thorough wash, etc.)? Do I replace the whole bike with a better, more expensive one, especially if I'm going to continue bike-commuting for the foreseeable future? Or do I give up on bike-commuting for the time being?

This dilemma is more complicated than it might seem. Starting in September, my internship will be over and my time will more flexible because I'll be exclusively working on my dissertation. Given that flexibility, I'm planning to walk-commute to school instead of bike-commuting because I no longer need the time-efficiency of the bike and I prefer walking as a form of exercise. Further, I *may* be moving to another city as soon as January 2011, and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to bike- or walk-commute wherever I end up. ALSO, I'm facing the expense of having to buy a laptop so I can work on my dissertation from a school-based office, so I'm not sure how feasible it is to buy an expensive bike and a laptop around the same time. After all, I'm still a student and a single parent, so money is always an issue.

I need to consider this more thoroughly. As much as I'd love a new bike, I don't think I can justify an expense like that at this time. Even good used bikes are not cheap. Should I repair my current bike and finish off my year of commuting with it, even if it might cost a couple hundred dollars to do that and I might not use it much anymore beyond the end of August? And what if I can bike-commute wherever I end up after I move, then shouldn't I wait and just invest in a better bike?

Any thoughts, my faithful readers?? Your input would be most helpful!

Week 46 - Day One: Rain, Rain, Go Away

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 24 min.
TIME BACK: 26 min.
WEATHER: a few clouds, 17C, no wind there; raining, 15C, 24 km/hr head/crosswinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, zip-up hoodie (waterproof shell on the way home)
NOTES:

I woke up this morning and could barely keep my eyes open. They were grainy and red from a lack of sleep that accumulated over the weekend from two late nights in a row and no afternoon naps to compensate for them. Huzzah for having a social life! Jeers to the consequences!

All morning I forced myself through my morning routine as a nagging voice within me insisted that I drive instead of bike. The nagging voice was bolstered by the epic tantrums that were thrown by my over-tired daughter at every turn. I try to brush her hair - tantrum. I try to change her diaper - tantrum. I offer her some milk - tantrum. I offer her some cheese - she throws her milk on the ground, then tantrums. Come on!! All of this charming activity made us run late, and that voice in my head kept pushing me to take it easy today and just drive, right up to the last moment that I got on the bike and headed out.

During my ride home today I started regretting that decision. It rained on and off throughout the day. By the afternoon I kept taking every bathroom break as an opportunity to find a big window facing the outside world to see whether it was raining or just cloudy. It was just cloudy as of 3:00 pm, but by the time I left work at 4:00 it had started raining. Sigh. I reluctantly pulled on my waterproof shell and headed out into the wet and cold after a long, busy, tiring day. Somehow, this was easier in the winter.

I arrived home 26 minutes later, drenched and harbouring a chill deep within my bones that didn't leave my body until a hot shower scared it off three hours later. It has been raining ever since. It's supposed to rain up to 65 mm in the next 24 hours, with some crazy wind tomorrow. Methinks I will opt to drive.

I have to say, I preferred winter biking to all this rain biking. At least snow never trickled down the back of my neck and made my underwear wet!

Week 45 - Day Five: It's Been Emotional

After a day of going back and forth with text messages and e-mails, then a phone call, and then an in-person visit, as of last night my boyfriend and I have decided to go on a break for the next month and re-evaluate where we stand then. To call everything that transpired yesterday and into the late evening unpleasant would be a significant understatement. It was heartbreaking. I barely slept all night, only finally falling asleep in the early morning hours, then I slept in and was running late when I got up. I left the bike at home and just drove.

A colleague and I went for a 30-40 minute walk over lunch, as we usually do on Tuesdays and Fridays, but today we went farther, faster, and did more hills and stairs to compensate for the fact that I didn't bike-commute. While it's still not remotely the same level of exercise as an hour of biking, at least I know I got some exercise in. That's important when I'm feeling as drained - physically and emotionally - as I am today.

I'm looking forward to a nice big dinner and an early bed time. I'm looking forward to some social time with some friends on Saturday night. I'm even looking forward to mowing the lawn Sunday afternoon. Compared to the process of separating myself from someone I care about, just about anything looks fun.

Week 45 - Day Four: Burning Off Steam

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 24 min.
TIME BACK: 24 min.
WEATHER: clear, 17C, 4 km/hr crosswind there; a few clouds, 27C (feels like 29C), 11 km/hr cross/headwinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga capris, t-shirt
NOTES:

Huh. It's amazing how useful a bike-ride home can be. After exchanging uppity text messages and e-mails all day (wow, has domestic discordance sure changed over the years), the ride home was a great opportunity to blow off steam and think things through better. By the time I got home, I had a pretty good idea how to proceed, and I didn't feel too overwhelmed by emotions about it because I worked that shit out through my pedals.

Good to know, n'est-ce pas?

Week 45 - Day Three: Car vs. Bike Trailer - No Choice

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 26 min. (from daycare)
TIME BACK: 25 min. (to home, not daycare)
WEATHER: partly cloudy, 16C, 9 km/hr tail/crosswinds there; raining, 17C, 33 km/hr headwinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga capris, t-shirt, zip-up hoodie (zip-up hoodie was traded in for a waterproof shell on the way home because it was raining haaaaard!)
NOTES:

How appropriate, given the blog I had just posted. When I got home from work yesterday, I noticed something was missing from my panniers: the car key. Hmm. Problematic. I emptied all the contents from the panniers to search for the key, and when I couldn't find it there or in any of my clothes' pockets I searched around my front lawn and the sidewalk outside my house. The frustration mounted as I spent 5 minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes searching frantically for my key to no avail. What the hell?

It occurred to me that the key might have fallen out of my pannier pocket when I threw my panniers under my desk at work, as I do every day when I first arrive there. I hoped it would be there, sitting idly under my work desk when I came back to work this morning. In the meantime, without a spare key (the spare was stolen during a home burglary a couple years ago and I never bothered replacing it), I was stuck without access to my car. That means I was stuck using the bike and trailer to transport my daughter to daycare. The same bike and trailer she refused to use yesterday to get to daycare.

On some level, I saw this as a good thing: maybe my daughter didn't care for the trailer because she's simply out of practice with using it. Maybe she doesn't remember how much fun it can be to play with all the straps and buckles inside and to go over bouncy bumps in the road. When I wrestled her into the trailer this morning, she quickly dropped the fight in favour of playing with a neat little buckle she found. Well, that was easy. She then proceeded to be a cooperative and even giddy little passenger the whole way to daycare:

"Hi, mamma!" she would call out from behind me.
"Hi, Sophia!" I would respond over my shoulder.
"Whoooooa, big bump!" she would exclaim joyfully as we hit a pothole. If only that pothole had been as fun for me . . .

When I got to work this morning I found the car key sitting under my desk, exactly where I hoped it might be. And now, my daughter and I are both back in the habit of using the bike trailer. Hopefully this lost key incident has kick-started a positive trend: less driving, more biking, even when I have to transport my daughter and/or other precious cargo. Oh, how the world works in mysterious ways! It all works out in the end.