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.