I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike
Many years ago, when I lived in the suburbs with its shitty bus routes, I used to bike all the time. Particularly when I was at the UofM and worked near it, I used to bike from my place to Pembina almost every day, there and back, for a couple years.
Then, like almost every 20-something, I ended up living in a small suite on the top floor of a 4 floor walkup, which is hardly conducive to wanting to use (or even own) a bike. I tried to keep it up though, spending more time than before on my rollerblades, but shitty road/sidewalk conditions combined with Winnipeg's less than ideal climate made me slowly lose my initiative. And of course, once lost, it's a hard thing to get back.
So this year, my mom finally decided that her bike was just taking up space on the balcony, now that my dad can't ride anymore. And so I inherited a bike and with it, after about two months of it just sitting there, the initiative to take it out and ride.
And now I find myself becoming one of those biking enthusiasts, regularly doing 20-25 kilometer routes just to kill a bit of time and considering lofty goals that I would have once thought were impossible or at least the sort of thing some unreasonably crazy person would be interested in (though this may of course actually be the case).
Also, there's a crazy amount to learn about bike mechanics and physics. But I suppose, this is considered the most efficient method of unmotorised locomotion and thus worthy of all sorts of study, nevermind the continuous evolution in design and construction. Obviously it is not all strictly relevant to an average cyclist, but I am of course a person who seems to enjoy filling his head with highly specialised (and otherwise useless) knowledge and so this will likely be as much a mental exercise as a physical one.
Then, like almost every 20-something, I ended up living in a small suite on the top floor of a 4 floor walkup, which is hardly conducive to wanting to use (or even own) a bike. I tried to keep it up though, spending more time than before on my rollerblades, but shitty road/sidewalk conditions combined with Winnipeg's less than ideal climate made me slowly lose my initiative. And of course, once lost, it's a hard thing to get back.
So this year, my mom finally decided that her bike was just taking up space on the balcony, now that my dad can't ride anymore. And so I inherited a bike and with it, after about two months of it just sitting there, the initiative to take it out and ride.
And now I find myself becoming one of those biking enthusiasts, regularly doing 20-25 kilometer routes just to kill a bit of time and considering lofty goals that I would have once thought were impossible or at least the sort of thing some unreasonably crazy person would be interested in (though this may of course actually be the case).
Also, there's a crazy amount to learn about bike mechanics and physics. But I suppose, this is considered the most efficient method of unmotorised locomotion and thus worthy of all sorts of study, nevermind the continuous evolution in design and construction. Obviously it is not all strictly relevant to an average cyclist, but I am of course a person who seems to enjoy filling his head with highly specialised (and otherwise useless) knowledge and so this will likely be as much a mental exercise as a physical one.