Tuesday, January 25, 2011
A fish on a bicycle -no something more implausible
A terrible sight was seen on the streets of Whitemark, an apparition to make your blood freeze... or at least make you run for cover. Yes, yours truly on a bicycle. These things are not my metier, but I decided that as we live two km from town, and there was a bicycle for $10 for sale at a garage sale... James's very smart mountain bike is here, but 1)it's his, 2)it's very tall... so I thought this might work and save fuel. It's been about 12 years since I last got onto a bicycle and that was not much fun. (on the beach riding back to my son with an asthma attack.) This is a road bicycle, and I was rather wary... and wobbly. But although I put long sleeves and long trousers on, gravel rash did not happen. So now we'll just have to work at a little more distance and maybe slightly less arthritic tortoise speed (my son informed me I got up to 15 km an hour...)
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there is a good reason that bike was $10,it had to be stripped down, and sorted out before being allowed onto the road. the gears now work beautifully but thats quite the inverse of how they were this morning! When you find a "bargin" try find out why it is a bargin before you grab it! not 3 days later when you try it out. . .
ReplyDeleteAhh.. but that is how we learn, by being rash, then paying the _rest_ of the price of purchase. My teenager just learned that lesson last fall with a garage sale purchase.
ReplyDeleteDan
At 15k/h you'd make it to town in a mere eight minutes. The trick to the bike riding lifestyle, learned a long time ago when I was skinny, is to not forget that you haven't got the car, and don't buy more than can be dangled from the handlebars.
ReplyDeleteIf you're peddling that slowly then your big strapping son should be able to run beside you and offer withering abuse about how you're barely peddling faster than an 85 year old (viz my aged parent who cycled 2km in 9 minutes this morning including a brief pause for traffic).
ReplyDeleteAlthough perhaps Flinders Island is one of those places where it's up hill into a howling blizzard no matter which way you cycle...