Rides 7/29

Does anyone even remember Friday? I certainly don't. It likely happened, since after all, it's a few days later and we tend not to progress in an orderly fashion throughout the week and not just jump around from one day to the next all willy-nilly. But as far as the bike commuting part went, it went and it probably went fine. I didn't ride to coffee because I got a late start out of the house, but I don't seem to recall anything especially funny or troubling from the morning. The afternoon was about equally boring, except for the sensation of whipping down Cleveland on the Brompton thinking about how much more comfortable I've gotten riding the Brompton "fast" downhill compared to how I was when I first started commuting on it a few weeks ago. Again, important to note that in objective terms that it is not a fast bike, but it does pick up some speed on downhills and its tiny wheels have relatively many more rotations than bigger wheeled bikes, so maybe that gives the sensation of going faster and also, you're lower to the ground, so let's just say all of these factors combine into making it seem like I'm going fast downhill, which is not something I really like exactly. I mean, it's fine, but it's not my thing. I prefer uphill plodding (in bikes and life). But I've gotten a lot more comfortable with it lately and maybe someday I might even come to enjoy it.

Those were the commutes. And that was just one paragraph and I feel like I owe you more, so let me tell you about my weekend leisurely ride out through Maryland to Whites Ferry and then across the river (by ferry, not magic dolphin or whatever) and then back through Leesburg to the W&OD trail and eventually back to DC. The whole thing was about 80 miles. I rode the Pink bike. Two things on this:

1. it's been some time since I've ridden that far. Almost a year. I wasn't worried that I couldn't do it (perhaps foolishly), but I was out of practice.
2. This is the first big ride for the Pink bike, which I purchased in a fit of Blossom Madness earlier in the spring and then promptly placed in a corner to ignore while I tended to other things.

Summary: It was nice. Like with all longish rides, I liked being by myself and hated being by myself. I got into some good rhythms and there were definitely sometimes when I thought to myself 'you know, for someone who doesn't really know how to ride a bike [like, in any kind of real sense, like a racer-type], every so often you don't obviously seem to completely suck at it' and there were definitely other times when I thought to myself 'you are dumb. it's 1000 degrees. why. whyyyyyyy' but there were no times, even during the whyyyyy times, that I thought I shouldn't have been out there. I was glad that I did it. It was nice. The Pink, however, is going to need some slight fit adjustments and I'm dealing a little today with the residual effects of that, but that'll be taken care of soon and then it'll be hopefully less than almost a year before the next biggish ride. Fit aside, the bike is a dream. It's everything I wanted it to be and so much more.