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.

Knee & Elbow Pads

We had a cool and nice morning today.  So I rode very happily with humming and singing.  

I felt that I could ride more to 15 miles, but I controlled myself not to do.  Because I didn't want to get any pain later.  

At last my knee & elbow Pads were delivered this afternoon!  So even though I was a little tired after the morning cycling, I had to ride again to try them. 

Knee pads,

and elbow pads. 

They are comfortable and trustworthy.  And I felt secure with them to practice in our garden.

Mr. Whp was happily riding around here and there in our garden today again!  I will do like that in the future, but a little by little.

Raising my consciousness

Finished my sketch of the cyclist.

Moved some tiles in our garden to make another bike path.  I still need to practice riding there though, meanwhile Mr. Whp is enjoying it all by himself.  Someday I will be able to ride through.

Twilight ride until sunset

Luckily yesterday's bashed knees by falling didn't carry the pain so long.  The swells have also gone.  Lucky for me, so far.  But I should be more careful, and think about doing something for my legs.

It was too hot again.  We managed to ride until twilight time.  At the beginning it was still hot, but it started getting windy and the temperature cooled toward sunset.  I rode the folding bike again and tried pedaling slow for a while again.  

Riding with small number on rear

Folding bike has smaller wheels so that the weight is closer to the ground.  That makes handling easier, I found.  If I balanced well, ...

After practiced riding our garden trail, I got a little better for balance.  So the riding the folding bike this morning was easier than ever.  I purposely pedaled with small number on rear wheel.  That's very comfortable riding, and we both liked it. 

We don't care about speed any more.  We want to ride comfortably and not getting too much fatigue afterwards.  Physically we seemed not to fit road bike, trail riding will fit us nowadays.  Especially me.
We did cool down at the end, and did TV stretch.

I was so anxious to try riding in our garden again that I did it this afternoon.  I was OK on the east side, but when I tried the new part with big round tiles, I lost balance and fell....  This time both my feet and legs couldn't move flexibly to support my body.
I shouldn't have pushed myself to ride after 10 miles long road ride. I just didn't realize it.  

This is yummy, just pour coconut milk on the top of ice cream.

 I hope this heat will not come back any more.

Made a plan for trip, but ...

Found the easiest way to go grocery shopping.  If we can do it, I will feel more useful.  But... felt tired to try riding a road without bike lane and some traffic.

A comfortable easy morning ride.

In addition I tried our garden bike in the afternoon.  And I succeeded in riding through, only once out of 10 times.  Afterwards I watched the video to study.
If I don't swing the handle too much, and pedal more strongly not depending on arms so much, I might be able to succeed more in the future.  Which means if I don't get too nervous in my arms and legs, I will do better. It is always the same trouble I have! agrrr...

An Interesting video

Had a short ride in the morning. Felt like we are getting weaker and weaker recently for some reason, but we don't give up.

Found another interesting video.  Ride of my life

Baked oatmeal and raisin cookies to energy up!  

 

Battle with my own fear

Honestly, the more I rode on main roads, the more I got fear of cars.
Yesterday's video was interesting, but one particular scene made me upset and I just couldn't understand the people.  The scene was of people's reaction when they saw cyclists riding the first time on a country road, the child is surprised and asked his father "What is that?"  The father couldn't understand or was surprised too, AND.. he started throwing stones at the cyclist!! 

When I was riding on main streets and even on residential streets sometimes, some drivers were mean to drive close by with fast speed and angry expression.  I can understand that most drivers want to pass by as quickly as possible, but some drive as if they want to threaten me.

Some dogs will get aggressive and attack cyclists, because they are territorial animals so a little different looking human beings on the bicycle stimulate their instincts or something like that.

I hope we will not see those dog people too much.

On the other hand, humans are animals too.  When we are forced into scary situations, psychologically we might be frightened enough to loose our control.

Main roads which cars and trucks are sharing with bicycles should wide enough or at least have a speed limit no faster than 25 mph; that would be nice.

After only one day rest and hours gardening today, riding made us worn out.

Time, Distance, Average & Max speeds

Resting day

Did chores.
Drew a sketch. 

Watched the video on You Tube. 
" The Bicycle- A celebration of the invention.  
That was very interesting! 

Novato Biking Loop

Found an interesting route at Walk-Bike-Marin's site.  It's called Novato Biking Loop, 7.1 miles, 43 minutes.
Checked carefully every street last night.  We only knew the starting point at the shopping center.  All the streets were unknown completely to us. 

When I started I felt very fresh and thrilled.  Some streets have bike lanes and others don't, but all the drivers were nice.  Unfortunately the beautiful view of houses and trees on the streets were left in our eyes and brains.  I had no time to stop and take any picture, neither did he.  We were busy figuring out which way to go, and also felt like just passing as quickly as we can before cars come.

But the last long street, Indian Valley Road was scary.  The road was narrow but busy both way in addition cyclists were on both side.  For drivers it must have been scary.  But everybody did well.

When we returned safely to the shopping center, I wanted to ride some to cool down, so we did.

We had a spinach and cheese bagel and a turkey & cheese bagel sandwich with juice at Noah's at the shopping center.  And brought back pumpkin bagels and crunchy pumpkin bagels, they are yummy too.

 

65F was very comfortable!

Another chance we got today.  It was nice and cool with breeze this morning.
Pulled out our folding bike to try, because I haven't ridden it for a while now.  That was much more comfortable to ride than before, because my body learned a lot.

As I wrote before that we purchased a new replacement for the seat of this folding bike, because it was uncomfortably hard for my butt. And I was happy at that time.

Today I noticed the seat was too thick and in the way for pedaling.  

And surprisingly the cushion didn't absorb the shock of hitting bumps.  So I asked him to change the seat back to the original. 

I've just ridden on it for a while- about .4 mile, I was much happier which I couldn't feel long time ago.  
I'm looking for the next ride on this folding bike.  Because Mr. Whp fixed the handle post too which was crooked a little bit and I didn't care about before, but do now.

And I'm getting annoyed about my lovely regular bike HANDLE which is curving around in front of me.  I liked it before, but now it's in the way and feel heavy and clumsy.  If I'm just relaxed and take time to enjoy some scenery, it will be just fun and graceful.
And when I climb steeper slopes, I can be secure with this lovely bike not folding bike.  Because the folding bike doesn't have a front gear choice.  

So I'm thinking that I should train my body to be able to climb a much steeper slope with that folding bike someday.  I'm not sure if I can though.

Distance:  9.7 miles + .4 miles (with the original seat)= 10.1 miles




 

The whole sky was covered by mackerel clouds!

That was a good sign?!  I wondered when I got up and saw the sky in this morning.  Yes, it turned out to be a merciful gift for us.  We had such a nice cool morning that we could ride a few hours later.
Clouds were starting to bloom out a little bit. 

I was humming away while riding.  People with their dogs seemed happy and cheerful this morning.

So were those geese.

Finally we could ride over 10 miles, but we got tired suddenly, so we stopped.

Time, Distance, and Average&Max Speeds.

Yes, I remembered that we got into a main road and sprinted for a few minutes.  That sprint was a necessity to finish before the cars came.  Watmaugh road is always scary! 

Hhhhhhot again!

We could finish riding before sunset today.  But we had to deal with heat from the road and that made us energy-less.  In the shade we could cool down temporarily, then merciless sunlight and heat over us.
Luckily wind was blowing quite a bit, but it was not enough.

 Time, distance, Average and Max speeds. 

 

Just continuing is sometimes hard.

You have to listen to your body.  But it's sometimes hard to guess what's the problem.  Most of the time, too much stress, too much fatigue or not enough sleep.  Everybody knows that.  But somehow we just happened to get into a bad cycle.

Finally my headache has gone.  But we were afraid to go out in hot temperature of three digits.  We waited and finally the temperature came down to 90 F at 7 pm.  We went out for riding, although we knew that the sunset would be soon.

We both felt at that moment that our bodies wanted to ride more very comfortably.  But we stopped right there.  Even in our neighborhood riding in the dark will be risky for older people like us.  We can't see as well as in daytime, and drivers can't see us as well either.
But we felt happy to ride again!

Time: 45minutes, Distance: 7 miles, Average Speed 9.1mph, Max speed 16.9 mph.

Pain in my right knee and heel

I just don't know what happened to me.  Luckily my right side headache has gone.  My neck got normal.  The arms are OK, my hands are stiff like from arthritis.

But my old right knee pain came back which I got injured three years ago.  I'm limping right now.  

Today I drove our car to go grocery shopping, but I felt weird feeling, so gave the handle to him to drive back.  For the same reason I'm afraid of  riding a bicycle now until all this strange pain and uncomfortable feeling has gone away.

In addition it was extremely hot day today continuously since yesterday.  

We watched two movies.  After watching " Bicycle thief," I needed to cheer up a little bit.
Picked these music videos up from You Tube.

Le Velo
 
Tenth Avenue North Bike song

Y.N. RichKids Bike song

Wasn't the best condition, anyway rode.

Somehow I got this weird symptom,  right side of my head skin is very sensitive and untouchable literally, and also right side of my head hurts when I swing or shake sometimes.  Last night the back of my right eye felt weird and hurt.  I guessed that I just got tired.

Last night I had a hard time to get sleep.  My shoulders, back, and legs were hurting.  And my neck got really stiff with tonsil pain.

This morning the most of symptoms had gone, except head and tonsil, but a little bit calmer than yesterday.
So we rode.  We both know that 10 miles is just right distance for us, so no more than that we thought.

When bike computer show the distance 9.45 miles, we started cool down riding.  It seemed good for us.
 


 

Saddle down and just fine!

Practiced to stop and to restart again.  Also tried to tilt bicycle to stand on one foot.  My left foot could stand, but right foot was weak and useless.  Seems the saddle was too high for me to come down and land on one foot sometimes.  So with the saddle height changed down to 3.5'' it seemed much better than before.  Physically comfortable is very important too, I thought.

I really felt the necessity of walking and exercising for feet strengthening, butt moving flexibly and quickly--maybe abdominal muscle strengthening.

At beginning I was tired but kept riding, then after adjusting the saddle down and riding a couple of miles I felt much better.

Time, distance, average speed, and max speed.
 

The body hasn't gotten it yet.

Today I was going to ride 12 miles or 15 miles.  And tried pedaling steady on the long slope.

I thought I got it very well.  Stop and restart with lifted up saddle.  I was fine until ....

After continuously pedaling steady on the long slope a couple of times, I came to the top and I was going to stop for drinking water.  But I was tired more than I thought, then my right foot, which supposed be down and hold me up, didn't do its job, and both my legs were hanging down, of course neither of them could reach the ground, so I fell, but I didn't want to bash my right upper arm, so I used my right elbow to support, which was totally no good.  Anyway I checked my elbow, but the skin was just lightly scraped.  So I kept riding until it started hurting.

At home I was icing my right elbow on and off.  Now it's OK.  The swelling was reduced to almost nothing. 
I need to go to bed soon.  Hope I will be OK tomorrow morning.

As I always think that any accidents must be a voice from the sky, so I should think about it.  

 Time, Distance, average speed, and max speed.

Not only bicycling but also gardening!??

Yesterday I was still tired in the morning.  So we didn't ride at all, but Mr. WhP was cleaning and lubricating chains and parts of our bicycles, and Mrs. WhP did some kitchen chores and crepe myrtle tree trimming.
We found a good movie and enjoyed it very much.   He was so cute! 

Well, next morning which is today.  My shoulder and neck were very stiff, and my right heel got pain!!  I know why, because of too much looking up for tree trimming and a little bit using a hoe in our garden.

I figured out that any activity make my body hurts by my age, so just deal with it.

I tried cycling 10 miles with the same cadence whether flat or slope.  Oh, I lifted up my saddle to 4 inches, and that was the best so far.
Drank a glass of juice immediately when I got home.  And had easy lunch immediately, yes! these are TV dinners.  

And we had this simple Dessert each. Canned yellow peach and yogurt.

So we feel quite good now.

Rode 10.66 miles in an hour and 8 minutes.  average 9.3 mph, and max 17.8 mph.