Govermental Goats
One of the things I like to do is ride my bicycle. I bought my bike in early 1994, so you can do the math on how old it is. The bike shop where I bought it is long gone (replaced by another bike shop) and the brand, Univega, was bought out years ago. It's a good bike, but it's heavy. Someone in a bike shop described it as a tank, and that's what it is compared to newer bikes made of lighter material.
So I like to ride for fun and exercise, but I've been limited to where I can comfortably ride from our place, since it's not something I can easily pick up and toss in the trunk of the car. (It will fit in the back of the hubby's Honda Fit with both of us maneuvering it into position.)
I had wanted to get something newer and lighter weight that I could take to locations I can't ride to. There are bike/pedestrian trails at the base of the San Francisco Bay, but the closest is a little over 8 miles from us. I've just gone walking on them with my binoculars to look at birds, but a 17-mile round trip by bike in addition to riding on the trails just wasn't going to happen. I'm not that strong.
A friend in Oklahoma had bought a folding bike and was very happy with it, so I was thinking of buying one. I looked around, and they were a little more money than I wanted to spend. I didn't *need* one as I had a functioning bike. I had decided not to get one, based on the cost and that the levers on the brands I was looking at were difficult to undo with my aging, not-so-strong hands.
Then I had a meeting with my boss. In the years I worked at HP, profit sharing was a regular event, twice a year. But in the 14 years I worked at the next job, we only had profit sharing once or twice that I can recall. (Working for a company that is perpetually in financial trouble isn't a lot of fun from that perspective.) So I had grown unaccustomed to it. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that profit sharing at my current job this time was twice what it was last time. The money is parceled out by percentage, with more money going to better-performing departments and the percentage individual employees being decided by their bosses. My boss said he was happy with me so he was giving me the maximum percentage.
Woo-hoo! I had money to buy a new bicycle! So I bought a 7-speed folding Sun for a birthday present to myself. The levers are much easier for me to work than the Dahon (major brand) and Giant bikes I had tried. (I practiced folding and unfolding the bike and hoisting it up in the air several times in the bike shop to make sure I could manage it.) It's fun and goes zoom. I think it's a little easier to ride than the old one, being lighter and all that. I like that it's a little closer to the ground (the wheels are a little smaller and the frame is lower). I feel a little more secure, being not so far off the ground, if I'm going to fall off it since I'm not the greatest rider.
The down side to it is less capacity to carry things. I had a huge front basket on my old bike (called a newspaper basket) which was real handy to plop all kinds of things in. I had bought it with the intention of it being my go-to-library bike. I could get several bags of groceries in it. But it was hard to lock to racks and was unwieldy.
I had replaced the front basket with a back rack and removable side pannier. I tried the pannier on the folding bike. The rack is a little shorter, so it doesn't fit as well. The first time I tried to ride with it on the folding bike, I kicked the pannier partway off when my foot hit it while pedaling. I have since experimented and found that I can avoid knocking it off if my foot is all the way forward on the pedal - that I'm pushing with the heel of the foot. But I'm thinking I'm probably not going to use it on the new bike. (The hubby can use it on his if I don't use it.)
I've ridden with a backpack, and that's okay. I have a purse that is the size and shape of a messenger bag, so I used that to ride to church with. It fit my tablet, water bottle, and purse stuff. So that's an option. (We have a basket for food donations at church. I had a box of cereal to bring in and realized the best option was to strap it to the rack with bungee cords. That was interesting. It made it to church in one piece, but it was slipping off the rack by the time I got there. I need to work on my bungee strapping technique.)
I will most likely eventually get rid of the old tank and keep just my folding bike, which I'm calling the Grey Goose. (It's gray.)
So, govermental goats? I took the Grey Goose in my little Toyota Corolla down to the SF Bay Trails this morning. I rode around, going farther than I could on foot. Since I'm still getting used to it, I didn't want to tire myself (or my butt) too much so I just rode out half an hour then turned around. On the other side of the trail, the land is fenced off. It belongs to Lockheed and NASA. I had stopped to blow my nose and looked over on the fence side. There were a bunch of goats over there, presumably keeping the land free of weeds for the government. Not as cute as the pelicans, egrets and duck butts (there are ducks on the water, too, but one evaporation pond had all these duck butts sticking up out of the water), but amusing.
When we both have a free day, the hubby and I plan to go bike-riding together. There's also Shoreline Park in Mountain View and the Palo Alto wet lands, if we want to go bird-watching as well. So I'm looking forward to more fun and exercise on my little Grey Goose. Honk!
So I like to ride for fun and exercise, but I've been limited to where I can comfortably ride from our place, since it's not something I can easily pick up and toss in the trunk of the car. (It will fit in the back of the hubby's Honda Fit with both of us maneuvering it into position.)
I had wanted to get something newer and lighter weight that I could take to locations I can't ride to. There are bike/pedestrian trails at the base of the San Francisco Bay, but the closest is a little over 8 miles from us. I've just gone walking on them with my binoculars to look at birds, but a 17-mile round trip by bike in addition to riding on the trails just wasn't going to happen. I'm not that strong.
A friend in Oklahoma had bought a folding bike and was very happy with it, so I was thinking of buying one. I looked around, and they were a little more money than I wanted to spend. I didn't *need* one as I had a functioning bike. I had decided not to get one, based on the cost and that the levers on the brands I was looking at were difficult to undo with my aging, not-so-strong hands.
Then I had a meeting with my boss. In the years I worked at HP, profit sharing was a regular event, twice a year. But in the 14 years I worked at the next job, we only had profit sharing once or twice that I can recall. (Working for a company that is perpetually in financial trouble isn't a lot of fun from that perspective.) So I had grown unaccustomed to it. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that profit sharing at my current job this time was twice what it was last time. The money is parceled out by percentage, with more money going to better-performing departments and the percentage individual employees being decided by their bosses. My boss said he was happy with me so he was giving me the maximum percentage.
Woo-hoo! I had money to buy a new bicycle! So I bought a 7-speed folding Sun for a birthday present to myself. The levers are much easier for me to work than the Dahon (major brand) and Giant bikes I had tried. (I practiced folding and unfolding the bike and hoisting it up in the air several times in the bike shop to make sure I could manage it.) It's fun and goes zoom. I think it's a little easier to ride than the old one, being lighter and all that. I like that it's a little closer to the ground (the wheels are a little smaller and the frame is lower). I feel a little more secure, being not so far off the ground, if I'm going to fall off it since I'm not the greatest rider.
The down side to it is less capacity to carry things. I had a huge front basket on my old bike (called a newspaper basket) which was real handy to plop all kinds of things in. I had bought it with the intention of it being my go-to-library bike. I could get several bags of groceries in it. But it was hard to lock to racks and was unwieldy.
I had replaced the front basket with a back rack and removable side pannier. I tried the pannier on the folding bike. The rack is a little shorter, so it doesn't fit as well. The first time I tried to ride with it on the folding bike, I kicked the pannier partway off when my foot hit it while pedaling. I have since experimented and found that I can avoid knocking it off if my foot is all the way forward on the pedal - that I'm pushing with the heel of the foot. But I'm thinking I'm probably not going to use it on the new bike. (The hubby can use it on his if I don't use it.)
I've ridden with a backpack, and that's okay. I have a purse that is the size and shape of a messenger bag, so I used that to ride to church with. It fit my tablet, water bottle, and purse stuff. So that's an option. (We have a basket for food donations at church. I had a box of cereal to bring in and realized the best option was to strap it to the rack with bungee cords. That was interesting. It made it to church in one piece, but it was slipping off the rack by the time I got there. I need to work on my bungee strapping technique.)
I will most likely eventually get rid of the old tank and keep just my folding bike, which I'm calling the Grey Goose. (It's gray.)
So, govermental goats? I took the Grey Goose in my little Toyota Corolla down to the SF Bay Trails this morning. I rode around, going farther than I could on foot. Since I'm still getting used to it, I didn't want to tire myself (or my butt) too much so I just rode out half an hour then turned around. On the other side of the trail, the land is fenced off. It belongs to Lockheed and NASA. I had stopped to blow my nose and looked over on the fence side. There were a bunch of goats over there, presumably keeping the land free of weeds for the government. Not as cute as the pelicans, egrets and duck butts (there are ducks on the water, too, but one evaporation pond had all these duck butts sticking up out of the water), but amusing.
When we both have a free day, the hubby and I plan to go bike-riding together. There's also Shoreline Park in Mountain View and the Palo Alto wet lands, if we want to go bird-watching as well. So I'm looking forward to more fun and exercise on my little Grey Goose. Honk!