Where to start? The genesis of this blog is that I've had so much fun reading bicycling blogs over the last few weeks that I feel the need to give something back to the electronic aether. I don't think I'll be as clever or as informative or as compelling as the authors who have provided the cultural backdrop for my readoption of cycling over the past couple months, but maybe a purpose to this thing will rattle out eventually.
So yes, two months. But first, three years ago. Growing up, cycling was always something I dabbled with but never thoroughly conquered. Strength, pacing, and timing (of the bad variety) all let me down repeatedly. This culminated three years ago when I crashed my bike after slicing at speed against the inside edge of a two-inch-deep cut-out in the asphalt, scene of a series of water main breaks in the previous months, while changing lanes on my ride home from the university campus. Cracked my collarbone and my helmet, and beat up my bicycle just enough to make it inconvenient to start riding again. It sat rusting for three years in a garage and then a twenty-third floor balcony and then through our recent snowy winter at ground level outside my current home.
Finally this June I got it retuned and de-oxidized, intent on, well, I'm not sure. Riding in some sort of sense again. No delusions of grandeur, no dreams of greatness. But to my great surprise, suddenly, I could actually ride. Distances. And I was in no great shape at the beginning of this, but in the past two months I've gone from riding not at all to this past weekend's 118 km epic (which didn't even feel that epic).
So what are my present wheels? A 1970s-era Nishiki road bike with SunTour components. Maybe I'll take a photograph at some point. Anyway, on with the show.
No comments:
Post a Comment