+1 for Manny's words. I think about that each day these last months in the frozen wonderland I have been commuting. Not a very long trip either way, but it has been interesting at a level different from my fair weather cycling. The wide temperature shifts (+28° to -10°), varied precipitation (grapple, columns, rime, and plain old dendrites) and the surface situations (salt slush, brown snow, white pack, frozen slush, ice...) take my mind away and intrigue me with the sounds made by the advancing wheels and the different ways the stuff sticks to my bike's wheels and eventually discharges whether by centrifugal force, mechanical propulsion (freezing slush pushed through aluminum fenders by the turning studded tire) or the force of a driving headwind from the north.
If I don't embrace what some might dismiss easily as really awful biking I'd be down to nothing, except my old rollers and the absolutely mind-numbing sessions of self-mortification they bring clearly back to me as a reminder of how much sensation is available to you on any ride, at any time, nearly any place. They motivated my earliest winter riding, late in the night with imperfect preparations and along odd ways to avoid traffic and those evil cylinders of sensory depravation. I'll take a short ride outside anytime. Andy Cheatham (7° now, snow coming soon) Pittsburgh, PA On Sunday, January 26, 2014 1:12:43 AM UTC-5, Manuel Acosta wrote: > > Leah, > With busy lives and higher priority things to do. > Biking for yourself doesn't come often enough. > Be happy with the little rides, the little things that make riding such a > joy. > No ride needs to be epic for it to be memorable sometimes it doesn't even > have to be scenic. > Most of my rides despite how "crazy" they look are pretty mellow sometimes. > Lots of times we stop, take pictures, have lunch, coffee, or just hang > out. > Hope this helps. > > Manny > > On Saturday, January 25, 2014 8:05:08 PM UTC-8, LeahFoy wrote: > > >> We moved from beautiful Valencia, CA this summer to >> less-but-still-beautiful NV. There were paseos that connected everything I >> loved in Valencia, and I spent many happy miles on my Betty Foy frequenting >> parks, favorite shopping districts and church. I even had another at-home >> mom and her 2 kiddos to accompany me. My new home is up on a mountain, and >> boasts no paseos. There is nothing but homes for miles and miles. It takes >> 20min to get to the store by car. I'm able to bike to school with my boys, >> but it is only 0.5 mile one way. Church is on school property, so I can >> bike that same route 6 days per week, but it isn't enough. I miss bike >> commuting because I love doing useful things on my bike - I don't like to >> cruise with no place or plan in mind. I miss having another mom on my >> adventures. I'm the only mother who bikes with her kids to school. There >> are almost 1,000 students at school and there is one dad (mountain bike >> with disc brakes) I see bike with his son most days. One mom I see on her >> cruiser bike once every blue moon. It's lonely. And I don't think we'll be >> moving again for several years. I have a beautiful Betty Foy that >> practically begs to be ridden and I just don't get her out enough. I'm >> grateful for the school commute, I just gotta figure out where else I can >> go... I would guess some of you guys had times in your life where you had >> to live in a less-than-bikey community. How did you deal? >> >> Thanks, Leah > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
