Back on the bike….
July 15, 2007Due to some confusion on my part when I struck out on my own, I had a month lapse in medical insurance coverage. As a result, I didn’t want to get out on the roads and train for fear that some overzealous teenager might bump me off the road with their automobile.
I now have coverage again and got out for a few days this week, I only put about 50 miles on the bike so it’s been a slow start. I am amazed at how quickly I lost my edge, I don’t know if I could ride the fixed gear to concord and back for a doctor appointment like I did two months ago. So I definitely have some catching up to do, i’ve got to get into better shape before school starts up again. The fixed gear is the transportation of choice for school days, so I need to be able to function after i ride it to pleasant hill.
The great thing about the riding this week? I got all of the tar/gravel off of my tires! See, I rode down Leland at the end of May and they were putting in some new AC, and the traffic was backed up. I jumped onto the sidewalk and rode down the sidewalk to bypass traffic, but at one point I rode on the new tar. This had the brilliant consequences of putting a 1/4″ to 3/8″ layer of tar and gravel onto my tires.
This had the effect of making my bike feel like what I imagine Fred Flintstone’s car felt like when he got used tires. It was bumpy as all hell, difficult to coast, etc. I tried to scrape it off while I was riding along with the bottom of my shoe, and it’d work ok, but the sticky tar would just pick up more gravel off of the road. Bumpity bumpty bump.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have luck scraping it off when I got home, and I couldn’t put the bike in the trainer like that because it would really screwup the trainer. I put the fixed gear in the trainer and rode that a few days, and that worked ok, but i would have preferred to have the cannondale for use in the trainer.
Anyways, the 50 miles this week wore off almost all of the tar. So i’m pretty much back to where I started from. Except now I’m really out of shape.
