Today, for the first time in nearly ten years, I rode my bike for a decent distance - something around 15km.
It was on my old Kuwahara clunker that cost me fifteen pounds second hand back at the end of the nineties, and used to live in my office in York to let me nip into the city at lunchtime.
Later on I used it to ride from Weetangera to first AIATSIS then ANU when we lived in Canberra -several days a week, clocking up something like 24km each trip.
But then we moved too far out to ride comfortably, and I started driving, in retrospect not one of our better moves for all sorts of reasons.
When I retired and we moved to Beechworth I had this plan to get my good Marin mountain bike back on the road and start riding.
Didn't happen.
It was the wettest winter for years, and then we went straight into having our extension built, so my Marin, and J's bike have languished on their stands for another year.
But yesterday we went for a decent walk in the morning, and it was such a nice early autumn morning I felt motivated to ride my bike. The Marin's gears jumped so it was back on the old heavy Kuwahara.
In preparation I'd found my cycling kit and pumped up the tires and checked the obvious, but obviously not well enough as I found the gears erratic - workable but erratic - when I set off.
The ride was harder than I expected - now being 61 and not having worked at keeping my fitness levels as high as they should be told on me a bit, and my bum hurt more than I expected, but it was a good experience, good enough to want to repeat it ...
It was on my old Kuwahara clunker that cost me fifteen pounds second hand back at the end of the nineties, and used to live in my office in York to let me nip into the city at lunchtime.
Later on I used it to ride from Weetangera to first AIATSIS then ANU when we lived in Canberra -several days a week, clocking up something like 24km each trip.
But then we moved too far out to ride comfortably, and I started driving, in retrospect not one of our better moves for all sorts of reasons.
When I retired and we moved to Beechworth I had this plan to get my good Marin mountain bike back on the road and start riding.
Didn't happen.
It was the wettest winter for years, and then we went straight into having our extension built, so my Marin, and J's bike have languished on their stands for another year.
But yesterday we went for a decent walk in the morning, and it was such a nice early autumn morning I felt motivated to ride my bike. The Marin's gears jumped so it was back on the old heavy Kuwahara.
In preparation I'd found my cycling kit and pumped up the tires and checked the obvious, but obviously not well enough as I found the gears erratic - workable but erratic - when I set off.
The ride was harder than I expected - now being 61 and not having worked at keeping my fitness levels as high as they should be told on me a bit, and my bum hurt more than I expected, but it was a good experience, good enough to want to repeat it ...
