Time Flies!

Wow, where did the last few weeks go! I can't believe I haven't posted anything since May 12!

I really don't have much new to report. Here's my activity for the past few weeks.

May 12 - See previous entry to see what NOT to do on a bike. I still have bruises!

May 13 - 10.4 miles around Bellwood/Pinecroft area. Rode with Alex, Chris, and Thomas from work ... Here's a photo after our ride. It was cold and windy!

May 14 - Spinning

May 16 - 11.2 miles around the Cove. Solo.

May 18 - Spinning

May 23 - 23 miles around the Cove ... longest ride so far. Solo. Beautiful day!! Here's the view I had for most of my ride!

May 25 - 23.1 miles around the Cove. Solo. Another perfect day! But I was lonely. Miss my sister & brother-in-law riding with me. Bro-in-law won't be on his feet for a while due to a motorcycle accident on Mother's Day. We're all praying for a speedy recovery, but unfortunately, it's gonna be a long road for him. We love you, Cris! But Sis is still planning to ride the MS150 and will get back in the saddle soon.

May 27 - Spinning ... Chrissy came too! Yea!! Good workout ... lots of climbing.

I would have liked to have ridden more, but life gets in the way sometimes.

Later ...

Not My Day to Ride

Well, I took a solo ride tonight and here is how it went.

First, my route ... from my house to Brumbaugh Road ... turned left on Cove Lane ... turned right on Kensinger Rd ... turned left on Carper Rd ... turned right on Cove Lane Rd. ... left on Rt. 866 (Market Street) ... (this is where the 'incident' occurred - keep reading) right on Spring St ... left on State St to Cowan Rd to Frederick Rd ... left on Rt. 164 (Cove Mtn Rd) to home. Approximately 12 miles.

1 - I forgot my water bottle ... thankfully my daughter noticed and came running after me.

2 - My Cyclocomputer did NOT work! Grrrr! I had the bike shop reset it for me to add in the miles I lost when I dropped it last week. Everything worked AFTER I dropped it, except I lost my cumulative miles. Now after they 'fixed' it, I have my total miles, but nothing else works. I stopped and tinkered and smacked it a few times to no avail. No speed, distance, time, etc.

3 - I had my first mishap, and it was totally my fault. I'm coming up Market St. in Martinsburg to turn right onto Spring St. There were construction workers in that area, and a motorcycle sitting at the stop sign at Spring St. waiting to turn left. There were no other cars coming and he was waiting for me. So being the courteous cyclist that I am, I reach my right arm out to signal that I was turning right, but I realized I need to slow down. Right arm is out, left hand hits the brake a tad too hard (I forgot that was my FRONT brake) and I was so focused on the motorcycle that I didn't see the manhole cover and I hit it at the moment I hit the brake. OOPS!! I flew head first over the front of my bike. Now I know why we wear helmets. If you look closely at this picture, you will see a slight boo boo on my forehead (and that's my pissed off look!) Yes, I took this picture of myself which explains the double chin.

I never moved so fast in my life. The guy on the motorcycle stayed put for a minute to see if I was okay. I'm so glad for the helmet and sunglasses ... hopefully nobody recognized me. I jumped up, picked up my bike and moved to the sidewalk, all while uttering various four letter words. My headlight popped off and is scratched, my mirror got scuffed up and came loose, my brake handle is all scratched. My body? I have a few goose-eggs on my elbow and knee. No blood! The picture on the right is of the tread mark on my sleeve.

And the icing on the cake was ... A bug flew in my eye on Frederick Rd, and I had to pull over to get it out, take my contact lense out and rinse it off and put it back in. I'm so glad I remembered to throw my eye drops in my pocket!

All I wanted to do was try out my new saddle. Didn't expect all this drama.

The Assometer

I thought the bike shop was joking when they told my sister they could get the assometer out to properly measure her for a saddle. I decided to google this just for fun and to my surprise there is actually such a thing out there. Specialized bikes have come up with this concept to measure your ischial tuberosities (otherwise known as your sit bones). Apparently no matter how much or how little padding you have it does not correlate to the width of your sit bones as most people would believe. Therefore you could have a really big assometer reading and actually have a very little behind and vice versa. Due to this anomaly Specialized developed this pad that you sit on and then they measure the indentations made by your sit bones to determine which width of saddle you need.

This makes me curious to find out who has the bigger assometer reading. Me or my sister. Who would have ever thought of such a thing? Specialized bikes, I guess.

Miles

12.5 miles on Friday ... 18 miles on Saturday ... no miles on Sunday due to the rain. :-(

I'm happy about our rides, but I'm mad as hell. I accidentally dropped my bike computer when removing it from my bike before putting the bike on the car rack. Thank goodness I didn't break it, but when I went on our Saturday ride, I realized my cumulative miles were gone. I was starting at zero again. What the heck!! I had 104 miles on my bike before I rode on Saturday, and now it says I've only ridden 18 miles total. I'm so mad!!

I'm either going to sit in the garage and spin my front wheel like a mad woman or rig it up to the treadmill. I want my 104 miles back!!