Like this:

I am getting back to riding more, finally. This recovery from the October 2009 Hilly Hundred bike crash has taken a long time. A lot of people do not understand why I would continue to bike, but it’s what I love and is the ONLY fun thing (other than work) to do around here! Last year was too much time spent in the car commuting. (Rochelle and I drove 7000 miles on our camping vacation out to the west coast in July, but hey, that’s another thing entirely.)

Two Sundays ago we went on the Flatlanders Tour and did two of the four loops, so I ended up with 73 miles on the day, which was fun.

Mike, Karen, Dave at lunch in Elmore

I did a century this summer (drafted my friend Dave for 98 miles, seriously) on the Portage River Tour. Dave (orange jersey) and I rode to Elmore from my house, did the ride which was a metric century and went through Bowling Green, and then rode back, so I got in my 100 miles for the day. And it was my first big Tour event on my single bike since the Hilly where I crashed. Mike M in gray is the Elmore shop mechanic and he rode with us too once we got to Elmore. He was bemused my all my RAIN stuff… until I explained that it was the BBC club’s event (yep, I’ve got T shirts and jerseys, and have ridden RAIN 3 times, but worked it as well, so I gotta advertise with the jerseys. He will have to meet Dave T some day to meet a real RAIN aficionado.)

I have commuted to Tiffin University all three days this first week that I’ve taught, and the weather has been cooperative. It’s an 11 mile flat country route, which I did not used to even bother counting as training, but I guess I will now since my riding is so limited. I am back on my single bike although I’ve still been out several times recently on the Red Rocket Trek tandem with Tom. He has upgraded her to belt drive which is way cool and will be putting on a carbon fork and bars for himself (he gets tingly/numb hands so we need to cut down the road vibation.) I’ve been riding Kaz’s bike to TU, so his 5500 is now my nice commute bike.

It is kind of funny but the Elmore bike shop people passed my name along to a writer who was doing a newspaper article on bike commuting, and she interviewed me by phone while I was out in Seattle on my vacation, and then came over and took photos of me last week for the article. It will be in the Genoa OH paper. I got all rigged out in my commuter gear: had the Ross, complete with fenders, locks, taillight, and wore my Trek commuter backpack, so hopefully my poster child moment will live up to the story about bike commuting! I realized how weird I am when she asked when I’d started to commute… well, gee, junior high school?! I used to ride Lake Shore Boulevard in Euclid to Shore Junior High school, nearly, and leave my bike in my friend Andrea’s garage. I guess I took the city bus in the winter, but I got started on the bike commuter thing early. Apparently most adult bike commuters came to it after some period of driving (I did not even get a driver’s license until I was 19 and did not buy a car until after college.)

Trek Madone 6.9 New Bike

And my new Madone 6.9 frame, which I’ve built up with the 10-speed Dura Ace stuff off Kaz’s bike, has turned into quite the sled –feathery light, and has very cool Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels, courtesy of Mike G. and Jeanne Smith of my old place of employment, Bikesmiths. It took me a while to build due to the internal cable routing — very slick, but I gotta wonder how the pro team mechanics deal with that stuff — it took me hours to get the rear brake and derailleur cables routed. It’s a fantastic ride and I totally LOVE it. I still miss my crashed silver and black 5900, though but at least I have the older 5900 still.

My commute route to TU is flat, through farm land, and usually has very few cars but today 11 cars/trucks passed me as I rode home — heavy traffic day to be sure (I was riding home about an hour after my class ended and probably hit a shift switch time at the local factories.)

I’ve made it through six classes so far and 7 office hours: one more day and then I’ll have survived the first week of TU classes. I really really really hope that I can do what I need to do and not work every waking moment like I did last year. That was rough. 14 weeks to go plus a week of grading final papers, and another semester will pass. Many of my friends are no longer here — other jobs and maternity leaves, so campus is a bit bare of friends for me these days.

More later: I will blog more this year as the biking in the flatlands thing is happening more regularly again.

Advertisement