apropos of this morning's ride around the lake:

[kuangning]

While it may be true that once you learn how to ride a bicycle you never forget, my shaky knees are proof that you can entirely forget how to ride one well. I haven't ridden a bicycle for more than fifteen minutes since I was twenty-one years old. I expect it's going to take me some getting used to.

In the good column:

Weekday mornings are a good time to ride that trail; with everyone at work or at school, it's clear of pedestrians.

I did not fall off, or anything remotely resembling falling off. Of course, the step-through design of my bike helps with this, which is why I chose it. If worse comes to worst, I can just put my feet down and slide off the saddle.

The saddle is, in fact, wide enough and comfortable enough that there was no pressure in inappropriate places.

I can, in fact, shift gears without trouble -- this is the first bicycle I've owned where shifting gears is even a possibility, and I was worried.

I had not the slightest twinge of back pain -- hurray for being able to sit upright and not bend over the handlebars.

Cons:

I'm still going to need a lighting system if I'm going to use this for commuting.

I'm still going to need a lightweight jacket and tracksuit pants or something -- I don't fancy bare skin against asphalt the day I do take a spill.

The accident-induced fear of traffic translates directly. To be perfectly frank, Raleigh drivers still scare the living hell out of me, and that's going to take some time to go away. I've got the same sick feeling getting on the bicycle that I do getting into a car.

Crossposted from my site; you can respond here or there.

Comments

[moondancerdrake.livejournal.com]

Jeans might protect your kneesees better. I need to start biking again, I haven't done it since I was about 10 and only for a little bit. We were pretty poor and I saved up a long time for the one bike I had, and then it got stolen (suckage!) I think it's great you're getting back into it again. Great for your, health, the enviroment, all around. I've been trying to find a used bike, but I am so short I am having trouble finding one to fit me right.

[kuangning]

Jeans might, but I seriously hate them; they have this tendency to leave my legs feeling like they've caught every single fine hair and tugged on them all for a full day. I need something with a looser fit, even if that means I need to have drawstrings or Velcro at the ankles.

That does suck about not finding one that fits you; have you gone in to your local bike shop yet? You can have them fit you to something during the course of looking around, and then see if you can find something used in the same brand and measurements. If they're a *good* local bike shop, they might help you find something used; they'd rather you be riding something you didn't buy from them than not riding at all.

[mayamaia.livejournal.com]

Go you for getting started, though! I always dislike redeveloping my biking abilities, since it generally means a few days of being saddlesore even with a great seat.

[mother-beech.livejournal.com]

Yay biking! As someone who commutes in Boston on a bike, I know what crazy drivers are like. Even not riding for a few months was enough to make me mildly uncertain the first time I got back on this spring. You're going to want lightweight things to ride in especially when it gets warm. Track pants aren't great at keeping things in one piece. Looser pants are easily bike-ified with velcro reflective wraps. In the summer I ride in canvas shorts or board shorts because they minimize chafing on the inside of the legs.

To mondancerdrake try a kid's bike! There are a lot of really good, smaller framed bikes out there for kids, and since kids grow out of stuff so fast you'll probably be able to get something fairly easily.

[kuangning]

Thanks for this. :) I'm not actually worried about the clothing being reflective. I intend to light the bike up like a Christmas tree with a Down Low Glow dual-tube system:



That plus a decent headlamp should more than take care of any visibility issues. Clothing is going to be just for protection from weather and spills.

[mother-beech.livejournal.com]

Dude, that's badass! I reiterate the "lightweight" part of my clothing advice. I end up soaked whenever I ride in the summer, and I'm guessing it gets a lot warmer down there than it does here.

[kuangning]

Are those lights not entirely awesome? The best part (aside from it being clearly visible from every angle, including the side view) is how the taillight makes it look like the bike is twice as wide as it actually is -- more like a motorcycle than a bicycle. I still fully expect some idiot Raleigh driver to hit me some evening, but I figure I will at least have the satisfaction of producing photos in court and having the judge ask: "You failed to see that?!" because that is their perennial excuse -- the biker "came out of nowhere" and they "didn't see it."