On Recovery

Last week the weather was astoundingly good, up until Saturday, naturally! That said I did manage to punch in a few miles. Remarkably in the period since I started riding Abigail (just over a week ago) I've already logged nearly 350km, plus I rode to Lake Simcoe, on Sunday, I used Jordan, so in just over a week I've logged over 500km and I'm not even riding to work in Richmond Hill anymore. (Which in the nice weather is a bit of a shame, but then in the lousy weather I now have the option of transit or the beater bike.)

Of course I also rode to Simcoe with a few guys, we took, well I took the camera so there's only one picture of me, the one where the timer was used. Jason, Patrick, Ryan and I covered, well actually Jason had to go to his aunt in New Market so he only did about 150km but the rest of us did about 180km of beautiful rolling southern Ontario. I have to admit, and I'd like to think this is somewhat big of me, Jason, Pat and Ryan are all much stronger than me. Period. I've got the prettiest bikes, but at the end of the day their engines are way better than mine.

Well that was a surprisingly easy admission to make. Still upsets me when I get my rear end so seriously handed to me, I mean the guys were nice and all, they waited for me a bunch of times, but it's still upsetting to get clobbered so consistently. I want to be the nice guy who has to keep stopping to wait for someone, instead I'm the one panting and huffing and puffing to the top of the hill while everyone else is leaning on their bars watching me from the top of the aforesaid hill.

On the final part of the jouney home we rode over some railway tracks, they did horrible things to my back tyre. Ultimately I replaced both the front and back tyre. But I took some pictures when I got home, those cysts on my tyre are disturbing. From now on I will dismount to cross those tracks.



If I still worked in Richmond Hill at least I would be packing in more miles, but I guess part of the problem is this past winter my base really fell apart. I was so busy with the move and everything I just did not have time to work on my cardio strength.

Anyway Monday I rode to work. After spending 180km on Jordan Abigail just did not feel right, her saddle is too low (didn't stop me from clobbering the cars on Danforth Ave.) and the bars are too high. I raised the seatpost a little last night (Monday evening) but the weather was iffy. I woke up this morning to the sound of thunder, loud thunder.

I suppose I really ought to ride to work even in weather like this, but it's very easy in the rain to call it a recovery day. Still six bucks to get from Main and Danforth to Davisville and Mount Pleasent? Damn, I can ride that in under 15 minutes, mostly obeying traffic law, the subway took over 30 minutes and it was subway only.

This is the problem with transit, you have to stop a bajillion times and it is not direct. At least I do need some recovery time, so it's not all bad, but still, the six dollars is offensively expensive. I am litterally paying $0.33/km if someone paid me that kind of money to ride, I'd quit my job and take up residence in a very nice split level in Rosedale!