{"id":2959,"date":"2008-07-30T11:58:54","date_gmt":"2008-07-30T16:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2959"},"modified":"2009-04-10T08:13:06","modified_gmt":"2009-04-10T13:13:06","slug":"after-three-months-and-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2959","title":{"rendered":"I Want To Ride My Bicycle: Three Months And Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This season, I <em>tried <\/em>to start biking around April 1.\u00a0 You may recall Mother Nature responded by throwing up the most absurdly-cold two weeks I can recall in early April; snowstorms, howling winds, brutal cold.\u00a0 Thanks, Ma.<\/p>\n<p>But I finally got on the road, making my first bike commute to work around April 15ish.\u00a0 I think I&#8217;ve missed three days since then; I&#8217;ve also taken to biking out to the station on Saturdays, and often getting some kind of ride in on Sundays.\u00a0 Between all of that, I&#8217;m up to about 100 miles a week or so.\u00a0 Nothing major, but not bad for a 45 year old guy who hasn&#8217;t biked a lot in the last couple decades.<\/p>\n<p>Upsides?\u00a0 I got my legs back, I think.\u00a0 Biking (as I was taught it) is about rhythm; your legs are like diesel engines; they do better if you can just get them running and never stop.\u00a0 The key (or so I was taught) is to find the pace you&#8217;re comfortable at, and use your gears so that you can keep that rhythm as consistently as possible on whatever terrain you encounter (high on the flats, low on the hills, etc).\u00a0 Ideally, you&#8217;re not straining (steep hills aside) or pushing as much as just reinforcing momentum, for the most part.\u00a0 And as it turns out my natural pace has always been pretty fast.\u00a0 I get passed by those obnoxious Lycra-clad 20-30somethings on their $4,000 racing bikes, and the occasional freak of nature on an oval-racing bike (single speed, no coaster gear; you have to\u00a0pedal <em>every inch of the way<\/em>)\u00a0&#8211; but not many others. It&#8217;s not a competitive thing (much), so much as being just how I ride.<\/p>\n<p>So yes &#8211; after three months, I&#8217;ve got my legs back.<\/p>\n<p>The other upside?\u00a0 For the first time in probably a decade or more, I can fit into (as the kids say these days, &#8220;rock&#8221;) size 38 pants.\u00a0 That&#8217;s down a notch or two (depending on where you buy the pants).<\/p>\n<p>The downside?\u00a0 None.<\/p>\n<p>Well, yeah, there is one.\u00a0 I do get antsy if I can&#8217;t get a ride in every day.\u00a0 Jitters, almost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This season, I tried to start biking around April 1.\u00a0 You may recall Mother Nature responded by throwing up the most absurdly-cold two weeks I can recall in early April; snowstorms, howling winds, brutal cold.\u00a0 Thanks, Ma. But I finally got on the road, making my first bike commute to work around April 15ish.\u00a0 I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking","category-mitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}