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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
