Thoughts in bed through Xmas

Alternately at least, we both got severe colds and stayed much time during Xmas in bed.
Finally we recovered with no pain and no uncomfortable feeling.

I never imagined before that my body would have such a bad time to adjust and fight against extreme temperature changes. 


Because of raining, busy shopping, and fatigue, then nasty cold symptoms, I couldn't ride so much as before in December.  But it's a nice experience with cold weather, so I will try cycling a little better next year.

It's been a great cycling year for us.  It awoke me to all kinds of truth of life.  Definitely  our life got more interesting because of bicycling.  We got two model bicycle ornaments as a gift even?!!

We want to keep riding next year, too!

Thanks to the many people who have been visiting my blog whom I know and whom I don't know yet. Hope I will know new bicycle riders next year.

Put on layers and go

Great rain stopped, now let's bike!  
It was chilly this morning.  Everything was fun.  But we felt it was enough after just 30 minutes ride?!!

We ate only a small bowl of oatmeal with some raisins for breakfast.  Maybe that's not enough??  I can't eat as much in the morning now as in Summer time.

I got stressed out a little bit lately, maybe because of that?  I'm not sure.

Anyway we still can ride for fun, that's great.
Nowadays I could ride with any clothes, that made me surprised the other day.

What a great idea to have a bicycle-sharing system!

Since I watched the DVD "Copenhagen" I've been dreaming of going to a city which has a bike sharing system.

List of bicycle-sharing systems

I was surprised to know that quite a few cities of America had it, and some more cities are going to have it.

I want to know more about how they decided to have it.  How it is working.

Some day I would like to try it.  Without carrying my own bicycle, I just want to use it for a while, it sounds marvelous.

Oh, San Francisco!  Found an interesting site!! 

Sharing bike has to be docked within 30 min., because that's a sharing bike, so you can't hold it continuously for hours and hours.  In that case you'd be better to rent a bike at rental bike shop like this.

The weather changed to Winter truely now.

We've kept riding in our neighborhood.  But we didn't take any bike trip in November after all.  By our age the cold weather seemed to make us stiffer than ever.

We forgot having exercise often and that was definitely bad for us.

But we still can enjoy riding together, and that is fortunate we should think. 

Mr. Wh forgot to check a dough before leaving for ride today, so the dough was over-raised when we got back home.  But the pizza came out very tasty, even though that is just some cheese and hot dogs pizza.

I shredded cheese, sliced hot dogs, and spread them out.  He made the pizza perfect for us.
 

Grrrr.. I need multiple bodies!

Hot weather in Summer and Fall made us hopeless to take care for our garden.  So we rode a lot without worrying about gardening and other household chores.

Now the temperature is right for anything.  Cleaning and painting cabinets.  Trimming trees and replacing soil in the garden. 
Physical and mental strength of ours got quite slim, so maybe because of that we just can't ride long distance, sometimes even short distance either.  We often forget stretching exercise.  I can feel my body is getting stiff.

In addition we only have less than two months to end this year, and that makes me nervous about not accomplishing anything.  

Well, I should tell myself when I can do, I will do.  

Chore is always not fun, but we need to do.  Bicycling is always fun but we can't always do.

Grrrrrrrr......

A chilly morning a morning glory was blooming so beautifully without care in our garden.  Wish all were like that.  Nooo...

Twilight riding

After three frosty mornings, there was no sign of frost on our deck this morning.  As I guessed it was a warmer day today.  After finishing chores, we went out for twilight riding again.  The temperature was 65F, it was still warm.
Trees on the street were covered with colored leaves very nicely.  It would be better color if I took the picture in daytime, but it's still pretty in twilight.

But the end of the 5.8 mile ride, the temperature went down.  I might need a cap under helmet, I thought.  Then it was delivered.

Well, we need to have another trip soon.

Safe bicycling

When we started riding bicycles in our neighborhood 6 months ago, there weren't so many cyclists on the residential road.  We saw one or two people once in a while.

Since then the population has increased more and more, and that's great!  I am happy to see them in our community. 

The other day I saw an older lady bicyclist coming up the same side of the center divided road while I was going down.  Luckily the road is wide enough for two bicyclists, and no car was coming down from behind of me, so we both were safe even though a car parked on the right side.  But my heart was beating from shock.  What if an impatient driver came down and passed me, then the driver saw her and tried not to hit her and then hit me!!?  The worst senario is not completely impossible in that case.

Even though I knew that is not good, I was very sympathetic about beginner cyclists who were scared to ride in the right direction because cars are coming from their back and they can't see them.  But I realized on that day that I was totally wrong to sympathize.

For everybody's safety, free beginner cyclists' classes are needed more often.  Just like the one I took before from which I learned a lot.  I hope I can take more with a bicycle next time.

Not only drivers education but also bicyclist's education is necessary for sharing the road together.  Of course a car has more power than a bicycle, so car drivers have to yield to bicyclists.  But still bicyclists should have their responsibilities too.

The time when I was scared of the cars coming from behind me, I stopped and saw the cars passing by, then I started again.  Because at that time, I had no confidence not to wobble too much while the cars were passing.  When I got tense, I had a hard time to control myself.

I still need to learn into my body so many things about bicycling for reasonably safe riding.
I'm sometimes discouraged riding because of fear, but riding makes me feel so good that I want to work more.

 

Riding beween raining and next raining

Yesterday we could ride that way pretty well.  I took off my trunk and put trash bag to cover the rack not to get water from the road. 

Fortunately there weren't so many puddles of water on the road yesterday.  So I don't know if my temporary cover is useful or not.

It was raining this morning too, so we waited for a while until the rain stopped.  That's it. Let's go!- we thought the right moment like yesterday, but the rain began pouring more and more.  So finally we gave up.  Only 1 mile for 8 minutes 21 seconds.

Then we had a time in late afternoon, so we tried to ride again.  No rain hit us, but the air was getting colder and colder.  So I gave up after 38 minutes22 seconds.  6 miles.

So I thought that I can use my crochet cap under the helmet temporarily.  The weather changed so severely.

I hope our whole gloves and my cap under helmet will be delivered soon.
 

Sunny after rain, hail & rainbow

Yesterday we got quite a good amount of rain, then loud thunder, then hail, and we saw an amazingly thick rainbow over our garden fence.  Believed it might have been a good sign!

The hail

and the rainbow. 

Would you like to sing?  Somewhere over the rainbow



Today it was a sunny day so that mini rose came back to bloom happily.

And we had a good ride happily too!

I felt like lifting up my saddle more, so did.  And practiced stopping and starting again with the new height so that I wouldn't fall accidentally.  It took some time to get used to it, but I finally could do well.

Hope our town will become better soon.

Health on two wheels 
  This author told what I felt exactly.  Nice to know that I was not an extremely timid person who doesn't like to share the road with dangerous car drivers. 

Physically separate bike lanes
 It really make sense.

And bicyclists need to know how to ride properly.
Yes, I will continue practicing day by day.  Especially be patient for pedestrians and be flexible towards cars.


Today we just rode short.  When we got back home, it was raining for a while.  But it stopped soon.
Now we had quite a rain tonight.  Hope it will rain more during the night.

Tried to ride on Davis Bike Loop

In spite of sluggish wake up in the morning, beautiful weather was calling us to go on a trip for riding.  We loaded our bikes and hit the road again. That was the second time visiting UC Davis yesterday.  This time we wanted to see some streets outside of the UC campus, so we tried to ride following the map of Davis Bike Loop.

We dropped by the Welcome center, then took Hutchison Dr. of the loop up to Sprocket, but we lost the way going under La Rue Rd, actually we didn't realize we should look for the place, anyway we crossed the road by walking and somehow found Orchard Rd and reached the exciting bike bridge above Hwy 113 and rode across.  That was awesome!  Smoothly we found the bike path along Russell Blvd to the West.
From there we didn't see so many cyclists any more and really relaxed.
Seeing agricultural land and horses having happy time on the left we were enjoying the paved, wide bike path continuing a long way which I've never seen before.  In addition speedy cars are just driving on a separate road over the tree line.  What a happy environment!

That long path was behind us.

Later I thought that I should have noticed at this moment, we might have ridden too much on Russell.  But we didn't notice.  Just rode and rode happily along Russell all the way to the end of Bike Path. agrrr....

Oh, that is the end of the path!

Since we rode quite a bit more than last time, I was just happy so took the same way back to UC.

When he lost the way and got out of the campus, I saw Whole Foods.  Yes! Get some drinks and sweets.  Ginger Soother and Cheese Danish.

When we got back to the parking lot.  My cyclometer showed it.  

Yeah, 15.76 miles!  I was satisfied very much.  When we got back home, we were really, really tired.

Now next day we both woke up with stiffness all over our body everywhere.  But we both had fun yesterday very much. 
I worked in our garden and he helped me too.

I hope we can ride tomorrow.

Almost forgot riding!

It was busy day.  And we almost forgot riding today, but when I remembered, it was still bright outside.  So we started late afternoon riding--twilight riding, Then we noticed the moon in the twilight blue sky.

Finally my long time dream was realized.

We drove up to visit the Bicycle friendly campus, UC Davis!

I've been dreaming for a long time to see the campus.  How students and people are riding bicycle?  How cars and trucks are driving over there?  I wanted to see.

In addition we decided to get "California Bicycle License".   So after parking our car at one of parking lots.  We headed to the  TAPS office.  

In front of the office.

Unfortunately all bike racks were used, so I was standing there to wait for him to get the applications.

After we got two kinds of stickers and put them on each of our bikes, we were heading to the Arboretum which is along the long trails.  But when I saw many students lining up at the catering truck, I decided to go over there to buy our lunch.  That was a great idea.  Thai chicken tacos and I forgot...  Pork, Jasmin rice and salad.  And Thai ice tea.  We enjoyed all of them!

Unfortunately we didn't have a big map for the campus.  We took a long time to figure out which way to go.
Finally we got onto the trail around Putah Creek.

That was a wonderful atmosphere, peaceful and interesting vegetation.

Over the creek I saw students cycling.

It could have been great long ride for us, but when I saw the trail became short but very steep down slope I got freaked out.  After that no matter how my brain told my body, my legs couldn't cooperate, just got stiff.  agrrrrr....  again?!!!  Why, why!!  Poor my husband.  He had to give up with me.

We got back on the street and tried to go back to the parking lot.  Then we found the building of the welcome center which we wanted to visit.  So we dropped by.

The staff were very friendly and we could have some rest on the sofa for a while.  
We got a big map of UC Davis here.  That is very nice.  I'm happy.

Definitely I want to visit again some time in the future.

We were so busy and never checked the distance we rode until later.  We rode for 51 min. 4.5 miles during our 3 hour visiting!??  We both got really tired.....  Hope next time we visit we will be able to ride more.

Finally it came out my own riding plan.

First of all we will ride as our favorite exercise.  It should be no strain or force unless we want to do something fun for ourselves.  It should be for our health maintenance as priority, then something comes next.

We will ride every day, and it doesn't matter fast or slow, long or short.  But no matter how we feel tired, we should try at least 2 miles or for a while.  By our experiences, we were always feeling better afterwards.

No more main road riding, besides in the city which has appropriate car speed limit.

After I told myself so, I feel much more relaxed, and we had a fun ride in our community.

But even on such a peaceful community road, there was a wolf driver today.  She or He was not completely wolfish, but couldn't deal with the cyclist.  So blasting up engine noise toward me from behind.  I was going to turn right at the stop line, but I stopped pedaling before the line, and looked at the car for a turn signal, there was none?? The car speeded up and turn left.  That was a humongus old car.
Luckily that was a very wide T- shaped intersection.  I was just fine to wait and let whoever go away.

No wonder some cyclists whom I saw in our community wanted to ride on sidewalk opposite side (I guess the cyclist can see dangerous drivers to avoid the scary accident.)  For me it is very scary thing to do though.

One time some cyclist was riding on the opposite side of the bike lane, and I was very scared and freaked out.  Luckily the guy had enough sense to stop on some extra area by the bike lane to wait for me passing.  I don't feel to blame him.  It's so scary and the bike lane on the other side is skinnier than the one on this side.  And I always whined away about it in my mind, in addition the cars are passing by violently.

DMV should tell drivers how to deal with cyclists on their renewal drivers license.

Share road?! No way!!

Got flu from a friend at painting club or not, we both felt not well.  But we rode in our neighborhood.  After that, we felt much better.
Then we wanted to ride on main road with some purpose.  So we planned to go to our library to return books.

Then, I got cold feet.  
Over our garden fence the sound of traffic was awful, big trucks passing by with high speed like freeway!  That must be way faster speed than its speed limit 45 mph.

The weaker my body got, the more scary to go riding.  Maybe I read too much.  Knowing too many things is sometime interrupting and discouraging too much.

But it would be better not to hurt than to be too brave.

When I get nervous, I will loose my control, that is my big problem.

 Not While I'm Around, sung by Barbra Streisand

Changed the plan for today

There were place to go and ride.  But we changed our plan today.  Because we both felt sluggish this morning.

After all it would be the best that we ride whenever we want to ride, however we want to ride.

Instead of the adventure ride, we stayed at home to do gardening a little by little.

For our lunch:  Corn soup with fennel seeds, smoked salmon, crackers, and beer.

Couldn't ignore the signs from my body

Last Monday my right foot plantar fasciitis got really painful.  I did some massage and gentle stretches.  The most effective one was icing.  

Then after Tuesday's short ride, I got eye fatigue which was blinking too much, and I couldn't open my eyes.  

So I rested.  I hope so.

 Piazzolla: O tono porteno (Autumn)

Including two kinds of practice

When I remembered yesterday's trip, I was scared about my unstable starts on a steep bridge, and a steep intersection.  Also my slow speed turning at the intersection even though finally I succeeded to get in the shared left turn lane, because the signal changed to yellow just before I got to the bike lane on the other side.

So I practiced starting on slopes, and crossing intersection over and over.  I counted 5 seconds.

At the beginning we were both tired, especially our legs, but after 6 miles riding our feeling got better.  So we could ride 10 miles, that made us feel good.

 

No more loading bikes, let's pedal!

Arnold drive to Leveroni, Fryer creek Trail to MacArthur St, cross Broadway, turn R on Nathanson Trail.  This is familiar for us now.  Then turned left on Denmark, rode all the way and crossed a busy  St, Napa Rd,  took Burndale to Knob hill to S. Central, and crossed another busy St, Hwy 121, left on Dale and finally got onto Ramal.  When the cyclometer showed 11 miles, I decided to go back.  Because my strength will be limited to 22 miles.

Turned out that was right.  In spite of my whining sound to our home, my legs were still capable to pedal.  Thank goodness!

"Honey, we'd better turn around here."

 "OK, we can go over there next time."

"Let's go back home!"

I found the beautiful scenery over the railroad.

This is the nice trip which we both really enjoyed.

 

 22.7 miles trip ....   
 I quickly cooked Trader Joe's Pork Gyoza Potstickers.  And dipped in Kikkoman soy sauce with Herdez Salsa Verde which is my yummy discovery.  Celebrated with Belgium beer ' Fat tire'.

Hope we will not get sore too much tomorrow.

Cool morning ride!

It was 65F.  We started riding bicycle about 8:15 am this morning.  The air was quite chilly, and it reminded me to order full bicycle gloves. The tips of my fingers were cold for a while.

Well, the air was clean and fresh.  I really enjoyed the morning ride.  

My right foot toes were getting cramped at the end, but I came back OK.  A comfortable 20 miles ride!

Biking to chase the setting sun

When I saw this sunset, suddenly my brain screamed.  " Let's chase the sunset"

So we did.  Just 3.8 miles.  For 25 min.  AVS 8.7 mph  MXS 15.9 mph

I hope we will ride tomorrow morning.  Because it will be very stinky in the afternoon again from ranchers drying cow poop near by.

Wish I could have two bodies...

It's fall in spite of hot weather like summer.  We had to clean our garden.  After cleaning and trimming, we had no way to ride bicycles.  Knees hurt, toes and small back too.

I have a music session tomorrow.  So maybe after that, we might take a short ride, I guess so. Recently I feel my body's limitation.  Easy to get tired, hard to get sleep.  I can't watch TV at night so much because my brain can't switch quickly to my sleeping mode.  Everything has to be planned before, that is sometimes annoying ..... But I should be glad that I still can do something sometime, I know....

Well, maybe tomorrow....

 Tomorrow Annie (2014) 

The first trial of shopping bike trip

Finally we got guts to try.  Because the speed limit is slower and not as much traffic as Leveroni Rd, we took Watmaugh Rd, but that was bad decision.  No trucks or cars obeyed the 40 mph limit on Watmaugh Rd, they drove 50 or even 55.  In addition the road surface was cracking away so it was very bumpy so that Mr. Whp couldn't see with the vibrating mirror.  That made him very nervous.  I had to concentrate not to loose my balance which I did pretty well.

Finally we reached our first destination, Broadway Market.  I bought 2 expensive juices and we put them in each trunk.

 We crossed Leveroni Rd and got in the bike lane.  Then looked for the entrance of Fryer creek trail which we biked before.  The trail was covered with more brown leaves than before, we enjoyed the relaxing ride.  

Turned right on W MacArthur St and turned right on Broadway to the second shopping destination, Subway.  

His trunk is bigger than mine so the foot long sandwich fit in OK.

Took Broadway for a second, turned right on Malet, turned right on 1st St W, then turned right on W MacArthur St again.  Crossed Broadway and got onto E MacArthur St until the Nathanson Trail.  We took nice breath and relaxed, then turned right on Leveroni Rd, via Arnold Dr. to return home.

Leveroni Rd speed limit is 55, cars driving by the same speed as Watmaugh Rd which is supposed to be 40, and 35 around the bridge.  I thought that Mr. Whp was right.  Leveroni Rd is a little better for cyclists.

We had cooling down in our community road to add 2 miles more and finished this bike trip today.

After we got home we happily enjoyed this sandwich and 2 kinds of juice. The sweet onion and Teriyaki chicken foot-long was Delicious!

And Odwalla smoothie too!
 
Next I might think about the shopping bag to hook onto the bicycle.


Most of today's drivers were careful and kind, so we were lucky.  But I'm thinking that at the intersection sharing with cars would still be scary if we were not lucky.  

Anyway I really appreciate the people who were kind and careful driving today.

We hit slump.

We need to find the way to ride not to get tired too much. I can't get faster, or ride longer any more.  
 
When you are young, practice will bring a result that you are getting stronger, better, faster.. etc.  I can't see such a wonderful result any more.  Recently the more practice, the more getting tired, slower, and easier to get pain for me.
Maybe because I'm having a harder time to sleep.  I wonder ....

Anyway we rode at least on our community roads to keep up with yesterday.  Sep. 30th.

At least  the temperature got much more comfortable nowadays.  And it was fun to use my homemade rear seat trunk, no pouch around my waist was very comfortable!

So I decided to make his rear seat trunk too.  Fortunately we have an ice chest with a color just right for his bicycle.  
Voila!

He is happy with that.
So we had a good ride together today.

We were going to ride just 5 miles, but we noticed that we were fine if we pedal slowly.
 

Remade a soft-sided ice chest to ..

This is my "Rear Seat Trunk bag!

Took off the strap and cut them to size.  Sew them on to one side of bag.  Sew on hard Velcro to the end of the 2 straps and sew soft Velcro to the other side of the bag to be easy to take on and off. 


Unfortunately my left eye bleeding this morning by fatigue, so I was going to rest completely today.  But I need to test the bag on a ride to see if my own design trunk bag works or not.

Just rode for 45 minutes, 6 miles.

My remake Rear Seat Trunk Bag worked very well!

Corte Madera-Larkspur Bike Trip

After 2 more days riding in our community which were:

Sep. 25,

Sep. 26,

We felt strongly to go Bike Trip to somewhere.  And we planned.
We found both paved and dirt bike/walk path near the town center in Corte Madera, and it continues to the North and West.

We came out to the dirt trail first and took this photo of Mt. Tam and the town center.

This is the dirt trail. 

The dirt trail branched out to the East and then we saw some view.

Larkspur Path

We rode to cover pretty much all parts of our plan today.

I forgot to stop the cyclometer when we finished riding, so the map showed the way we walked to the rest room and the restaurant.  Boca Pizzeria's pizza and salad were superb.

All of today's paths are separated completely from cars and trucks, and we saw many children on their bikes too, what a peaceful feeling to see that.