Gentle reader,
The last time the “Biking” category saw any activity here on tom-mcgee.com was back in 2011 with the post entitled, “Biking Again.” It felt awful then after ~3 years away; how was it going to feel now?
At first not so good. But why am I, at my advanced again, going through this?
When we took our trip to Europe in April, I had just suffered a torn miniscus. Walking everywhere, which is what we love to do when we’re traveling, was just painful. After we got back I started a couple of rounds of physical therapy and found that I could ride the stationary bike pain-free.
Kind of a revelation.
Fast forward then to the weekend and my first setback. I took my bike out to Loantaka Brook Reservation, where they have miles of paved multipurpose paths. I thought this would be a safe way to get my balance back. Oooh boy. I wasn’t even out of the parking lot before I fell, and put a deep bruise the size of a dinner on the inside of my thigh.
No, I didn’t take a picture.
What this did, more than the pain, was it gave me a phobia. I put the bike back on the carrier and went home, tail between my legs. But I’ve never been one to surrender so easily, so in short order I went back. I learned that there were some things I used to do without thinking that I couldn’t do anymore. Like for example get my right leg over the seat! But even changing lanes, merging into traffic, hand-signaling, looking over my shoulder, merging into traffic. Getting started only added to the phobia because I’d lost the feel of getting my second foot clipped into the SPD pedal. I was also super cautious about injuring my knee any more than it was, so at the first sign of stress I backed off and walked up the hill.
This went on for a few weeks, and I had to call E. a couple of times for a ride because I’d either run out of gas or my phobia had gotten the best of me.
This ride was sort of successful. I had to get off and walk a few times, treating my knee cautiously. I was disappointed to see that Lake Road, one of my all-time favorite biking roads in the state, was a decrepit surface-of-the-moon mess. That plus more traffic than I recalled on a road that’s barely one lane ride. Not fun at all.
That was the route I’d planned, but the app I was using on my phone wasn’t giving me the cues properly so I kept getting off track. I won’t be using that one anymore.
After than one, I tried a 24-miler from Livingston out the Parsippany, but had a little bit of a panic attack at the thought of clipping in and merging onto traffic on Eisenhower Parkway.
But little by little things are improving. I bought a new set of pedals, a model with a bigger “target area” for clipping in, which does make it easier. And I’m making use of the loop up in South Mountain Reservation to work on some of the fundamentals.
I did this loop three-and-a-half times, for a little more than 10 miles, working on changing lanes, looking over my shoulder, starting and stopping, and reaching down for my water bottle (and drinking from it). It brought me back to the times when I was teaching my kids these basic skills. This map was generated by Google Fit, setting it up to record a bike workout. When you click on the “+” at the lower right you can select Bike Ride, which gives you a much more detailed and informative map than if you just open the app later and look at what it gives you.
After getting that little bit of confidence back, I did a “Ride With GPS” Ride. I (mostly) like the way this one works. It’d be nice if the cues came with street names (“turn left in a half mile” isn’t sufficient if there are more than one left turns, I need to hear “turn left at such-and-such street in a half mile).
By the way, I wear hearing aids. They’re connected to my phone via Bluetooth so I can get the turn-by-turns right into my ear. Helpful!
Here’s the route:
22 miles, and it felt good. No knee strain at all. There’s one hill at around the 5 mile mark that had a section of 8.9% grade, so I had to walk that. But after that it went quite well.