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Jogger's Log |
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October 2014 00:18 08/10/2014 Tuesday night... It's October. (I'll sort out these web pages soon.) I've been getting into cycling lately. I got a bike that actually fits me - i.e. is big enough for me - and I've been going for 10km cycle rides every evening. I missed one evening and was weirdly depressed until the next evening when I did go for a ride. Anyway, the 10km/day on a bike is of course much easier than walking or running. Well, perhaps not easier than walking, but it takes about a quarter of the time. It's taking me about 35-40 minutes at the moment, but that will soon drop to 30 minutes I reckon. So yes, a very doable thing, to cycle half an hour every evening. And 30 minutes of good aerobic exercise every day is not bad at all. Good things will come from 30 minutes energetic cycling per day. Anyway, I'm happy with my new cycling routine. My knee surgeon actually advised me to cycle, to strengthen the knee muscles so as to compensate for the damaged knee tendons. I'm sure I will at some point get bored and will walk the 10km route instead of cycling it, but at the moment I'm a bit obsessed with cycling. It appeals to my inner tinkerer. I have actually ended up buying TWO second-hand bikes in the past month or so. The second one came up for sale a week ago, and it was so unusual and so perfect for me that I couldn't NOT buy it. I had one which was identical except that it was the standard-sized version of the bike. I liked it a lot, but I was never comfortable on it for anything but very short local rides to the shops and so on. The one I just bought is the (very rare) larger version. After committing myself to buying it on e-Bay I was saying to myself, "No! What are you doing? You've just bought a nice bike! Are you mad?" But, I was pretty certain it would be just about perfect for me, and I was right. I drove 3 hours to pick it up, and the moment I sat on it all my doubts dissolved. It felt right immediately. It fits me beautifully and is really great to ride. It needs a bit of tweaking to make it PERFECT (just a new pair of tyres really) but it's already very good indeed. So, yes, I will, no doubt, be constantly involved in tweaking these bikes and servicing them and customising them to make them even better, and my daily rides will be 'test rides' as much as anything, where I can test out my alterations. For this reason it's actually a good thing that I have two bikes, as when one is in pieces I can ride the other. Neither were very expensive. I'm always a bit ambivalent about these obsessions that overtake me from time to time, but in this instance I am quite happy to let my new cycling obsession take over as it necessarily involves the regular exercise I have been struggling to establish a routine for in other ways. This evening I rode while listening to some comedy programme on Radio 4. It has just started to get a little cool in the evenings, after a very long and warm summer and early autumn. I've found those white disposable Tyvek jackets are pretty much ideal for cycling as they breathe excellently well and keep almost all the wind off. It's cold enough that I really appreciate my windproof gloves too. |