This morning's ride

Drove the bike down the hill to Randy's office and rode it for 6 miles on flat. I gathered a little bit of confidence with how the bike will handle with a little bit of speed and practiced manipulating the pedals with the clips attached. There was about a mile where I ONLY pulled instead of pushing on the pedals, which is retraining my feet and my mind that it's not going to lift the feet off the pedals to "pull" on them, and truly, pulling is so much easier than pushing. I am able to get pretty good speed when I pull only - now when I am actively pushing AND pulling, it's going to be amazing, because it will work the quads and the hamstrings equally instead of mostly just the quads.

Tomorrow I am thinking ride the bike down the hill to the office & have Randy meet me at the bottom. I can get 10 miles in on a mostly downhill stretch and not have to worry about the clips so much if I do it that way - the way I would go has a really good bike lane & few cars, so I wouldn't be so nervous about the ramifications if I WERE to slip on gravel or other hazards. There is a lot of construction around our house, so that makes me VERY nervous with my razor-thin tires. I'm afraid I got much too used to the wide tires of a mountain bike/hybrid.

Will write again tomorrow!

Resting a couple of days

So I took a break yesterday and this morning... I will go riding again tomorrow morning. My wrist is healing from the allergic reaction I had with a bracelet I bought in Fiji on my layover, and when I wear the gloves to ride it makes it really tender, so I am focusing on healing that first instead of making it worse.

As well while I am taking the bike break I am making "Secret Sister Pockets" for Rachel's Girl's Camp. They are really cute. My new embroidery machine does a fantastic job, and I fortunately only have to clamp the hoop to the machine, press the button, change the names, clip the strings & iron them for each one to be ready to sew the side seams (I may have Rachel do that) and they are done. She'll be really proud that she brought them. I have long wanted an embroidery machine, and now that I have it working, it is totally amazing! Thanks, Randy!

Short ride

I'm getting used to the bike. It was a short ride today, as planned, but only got off for the standing water & super-gravelled construction areas. I still fear those, as I don't really know how the bike is going to react to unstable ground and the slower speeds I am currently riding combination. As I get more confidence with the clips and speed I am certain the bike will teach me how it is going to work for these conditions. Currently more important: I am getting into the habit of blogging my ride, good or bad. I feel like getting into that habit will be a good thing - partly so that others can see what I am doing, if they want to, but also so that I can see how far I've come.