New Wheels

I got a new bike today.   I’ve had a bicycle for about three years and decided I’d better get an upgrade.   The one I purchased at the time was an entry-level bike at an entry-level price because I didn’t know how much I would like or want to ride.   Until that time I hadn’t biked since I was a child.

It turned out I liked to bike and my husband and I liked to bike our children around on the backs of our bicycles when the weather was nice.   The gear changing was okay, but the overall gearing was set up for general riding and I’ve started riding more.   Specifically, I’m riding thirty or more miles at a time and a small advantage in gear ratios makes a significant difference over a long ride.

The bicycle I got wasn’t much more expensive than my original cycle but it’s more suited to how I’ve been riding.   I also decided to get clip-in shoes and petals—which sounded very high-end pro-cyclist when I first saw them.   The thing about the clip-in shoes is how you can pedal differently.   With sneakers alone, you’re pushing down at one point in each revolution.   With clip-ins, you’re pedaling down, pulling back, dragging up and lifting over each stroke.    It makes for more efficient muscle use and can reduce fatigue over long rides.

Two weeks to go before the triathlon.   I’m going to do a bike/run segment next week and see how it goes with the new cycle.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was playing with something yesterday and was excited about it.   I heard him exclaim, “it’s off the hook!”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My son was playing Sonic the Hedgehog video game from our decades old Sega Genesis machine.   At the start, the SEGA logo is displayed and a two-note rendition of the word “Sega” is sung.   Every time this happened my daughter would sing along saying, “Make Up”.

Fitness Update:   That new bike I just wrote about from above?   Well, I’ve already had an accident on it.   I got on it in the driveway to demonstrate to my husband how the clip in shoes work and due to lack of experience I didn’t get the shoe rotated out of the clip as I stopped, falling sideways off and landing straight on my pelvis.   It looked bad.   It felt bad—but it was a good spot in which to land given all the other options.   I’ve taken some NSAIDs and hopefully I’ll just feel a little bruised in the morning.