Tried riding my old folding bike after long time

Realizing that my body is aging and weakening made me train myself with the old heavy Schwinn today.

It was heavy before and it is still heavy today too. 
But I could finish the usual routine on the community roads.  I feel great even though I hurt everywhere.

Last year we rented bicycles in Santa Cruz, and I had to rent a children's bike because of my short height.  The bicycle handle was very different from my Novara, and I had a hard time to adjust myself even though the bike was quite nice.

So I sometimes need to ride on the one which makes me struggle.

Actually it wasn't bad as I thought it might be.  My legs are getting stronger by hiking.

First ride on Schwinn

Luckily the rain was stopped this morning, but another storm would come soon, I've heard.  So we went grocery shopping and then bicycling a little.

I decided to ride our Schwinn folder today to feel something harder.  It was sure hard to pedal, because it was so heavy especially on the up slope.  But I could ride 6 miles as usual in spite of the cold air.  The seat I just couldn't lift as high as my regular bike, because it's not secure if the seat is too high for me.  Safety is my priority.

When we were exercising afterwards, we felt pain everywhere which must have stiffened by coldness.

Now it's raining... 

 

New trunk for revived Schwinn

The revived Schwinn Loop, our folding bike, needs to have a trunk, so I don't need to switch my trunk between my Novara and the  Schwinn.   What can I use for that? 

Well, Mr. WhP lost a good old fishing friend moving away, so his water cooler was resting on the shelf.
Mrs. WhP made a new trunk with Velcro sewed for the Schwinn. 

The trunk's color fit with the Schwinn very well, so I'm very happy about that.  But it's so big, and after I put my bike lock and water bottle it got quite heavy.  

I got exhausted riding 7.5 miles this morning, and I couldn't understand why.  Then I realized it was the weight.

That bike will be a good training bike for me. 

My Schwinn revived!

Last month, July riding:
Jul.  01,    6.51 mi., ave. 9.5 mph, max. 17.6 mph,  0:40:42
Jul.  02,  10.82 mi., ave. 9.3 mph, max. 16.8 mph,  1:09:25
Jul.  03,    5.68 mi., ave. 9.0 mph, max. 16.9 mph,  0:37:31
Jul.  04,    5.59 mi., ave. 8.3 mph, max. 17.6 mph,  0:39:55
Jul.  05, WALK  2.4 mi., ave. 3.0 mph, max. 5.0 mph, 0:48:39 
Jul.  06,    5.92 mi., ave. 8.4 mph, max. 14.5 mph,  0:41:42
Jul.  08,    6.03 mi., ave. 8.2 mph, max. 18.5 mph,  0:43:51
Jul.  09,    5.52 mi., ave. 8.3 mph, max. 17.4 mph,  0:39:43
Jul. 10,     5.22 mi., ave. 7.8 mph, max. 15.7 mph,  0:39:58
Jul. 13,     5.85 mi., ave. 9.5 mph, max. 18.9 mph,  0:36:56
Jul. 14,     6.08 mi., ave. 9.1 mph, max. 18.8 mph,  0:39:49
Jul. 15,     5.51 mi., ave. 8.8 mph, max. 18.8 mph,  0:37:08

Jul. 17,     6.10 mi., ave. 8.4 mph, max. 17.3 mph,  0:43:25
Jul. 20,     6.10 mi., ave. 7.7 mph, max. 15.5 mph,  0:47:11
Jul. 21,     5.69 mi., ave. 8.8 mph, max. 20.0 mph,  0:38:19
Jul. 22,     5.59 mi., ave. 8.9 mph, max. 19.6 mph,  0:37:18

Jul. 24,   10.45 mi., ave. 8.8 mph, max. 16.5 mph,  1:10:18
Jul. 26,     5.70 mi., ave. 8.1 mph, max. 18.8 mph,  0:41:54
Jul. 27,     6.01 mi., ave.10.7mph, max. 19.2 mph,  0:33:38
Jul. 28,     5.83 mi.,ave. 10.3mph, max. 20.3 mph,  0:33:43 

Trails + roads on Novara
Jul.  30,     15.60 mi.,  ave. 8.6 mph,  max. 19.2 mph,  1:49:35  


July Monthly Total:  130.89 miles, 15 hours 22 minutes 01
 
Because Mr.WhP searched on Internet and found a special tool and parts with very reasonable price luckily, 

my old folding bike, Schwinn was revived!

So I rode the Schwinn very happily.
I couldn't hear the strange noise which I heard before at all.  And riding was much more reasonable, I thought.

In fact 4 spokes were broken instead of 2!!  

When I heard it from him, I was frozen for a while to imagine what if I rode very fast on the long down slope when the 4th spoke was broken!!??

Thank God!  

2 spokes broke!!??

Last month, June riding:
Jun. 01,    5.60 mi., ave. 9.0 mph, max. 18.2 mph,  0:37:19
Jun. 02,    6.60 mi., ave. 9.3 mph, max. 18.7 mph,  0:42:33
Jun. 04,    5.40 mi., ave. 9.3 mph, max. 18.5 mph,  0:35:10

Jun. 06,    5.60 mi., ave. 8.9 mph, max. 19.5 mph,  0:37:22
Jun. 07,    6.10 mi., ave. 8.0 mph, max. 16.8 mph,  0:45:38
Jun. 08,    6.00 mi., ave. 9.1 mph, max. 17.7 mph,  0:39:36
Jun. 09,    5.60 mi., ave. 8.6 mph, max. 19.4 mph,  0:39:24
Jun. 10,    8.03 mi., ave. 8.1 mph, max. 20.7 mph,  0:58:44 

Jun. 13,    5.79 mi., ave. 8.9 mph, max. 19.2 mph,  0:38:41

Trail on Novara
Jun. 14,    5.53 mi., ave. 7.4 mph, max. 17.1 mph,  0:44:20

Jun. 16,  10.39 mi., ave. 8.6 mph, max. 18.4 mph,  1:12:03
Jun. 17,    5.57 mi., ave. 8.2 mph, max. 17.4 mph,  0:40:21
Jun. 18,  13.90 mi., ave. 8.1 mph, max. 19.6 mph,  1:43:14

Jun. 19,    5.65 mi., ave. 8.4 mph, max. 17.4 mph,  0:40:16
Jun. 21,    5.60 mi., ave. 9.1 mph, max. 19.2 mph,  0:36:35
Jun. 22,    5.63 mi., ave. 8.9 mph, max. 19.6 mph,  0:37:53
Jun. 23,    6.43 mi., ave. 8.9 mph, max. 21.2 mph,  0:43:10
Jun. 25,    8.18 mi., ave. 8.8 mph, max. 18.0 mph,  0:55:36

Jun. 27,    6.55 mi., ave. 9.2 mph, max. 19.4 mph,  0:42:17
Jun. 28,    6.10 mi., ave. 8.7 mph, max. 18.8 mph,  0:42:22
Jun. 29,    5.67 mi., ave. 8.7 mph, max. 16.2 mph,  0:38:51
Jun. 30,    3.00 mi., ave. 7.2 mph, max. 11.4 mph,  0:24:34

June Monthly Total: 142.92 miles,   16 hours 35 minutes 59
 
It was the almost end of my morning ride on the Schwinn Folding bike two days ago.  After over 5 miles riding in our community, we had a stop for drinking water and we were going to loop around to come back home.  

I started and noticed a big noise from my bike, wondered why I didn't change gears, so it should have a smooth move?

So stopped and tried to pedal again, the movement was strange.  My front tire was wobbling?  I gave up to continue the course, and  slowly rode back home.

At garage Mr. WhP examined the folding bike. 

He  screamed, " I've never seen a broken spoke!  But it happened!  And not only one but two spokes!!"

I was shocked.  I was going to start using the Schwinn for another training, but I can't any more.  According to him, repairing spokes might cost about one hundred $$$. We had to give up.

I  checked my record:  
We got the Schwinn Loop from our neighbor in June, 2015.  Since then I rode 86.3 miles in 2015, and 117.02 miles in March this year.  Plus my last ride on July 20th was 6.1miles.
Total 209.42 miles the Schwinn gave me the memorable ride!!  That was very nice spare bike for me!!

I felt  some new era opening for me. How I can make the new era?

Getting familiar with the folding bike

Flowers popped up everywhere in our garden, and in our neighborhood.  Sun feels so good nice and warm, bright and cheerful. 

For a moment I wanted to switch back to my good old Novara instead of  my Schwinn folder.  But I didn't.

The more I study and ride it, the more my curiosity and challenging spirit come up.  I want to be able to ride it as well as possible.

Today we both got terrible small backache from morning, but we rode for an hour with slow speed starting anyway...
I checked my Schwinn folder using 5th or 6th gear for start.  And even on quite an upslope I could start in 5th gear kicking my foot on the ground and the other foot pedaling combination.  That was surprising!  I could start without spinning too much which happened with the 3rd and 4th gear before.
And I rode through using 5th, 6th and 7th the most of time.
I just need more time to figure out which gear to choose correctly in any road.  That's fun.

I got more fun to purchase this. Bicycle on the coffee maker!

I have lost interest in drinking coffee lately, but the french press made me happy and coffee enjoyable to drink.

Knowing my folding bike

So I've been researching about our folding bike.  From outside looking I've already known that's a Schwinn Loop.

The tire shows,

Luckily we found the model number on the bike. S2280A

So our folding is:  
Schwinn 20 inch Loop Folding 7-speed Bike S2280A.

My research started.  Reading what people thought about it.  
Then, Found this video on YouTube.  I thought this is very good education for me.  His is red though.  Nice color!
"Humm, at the price this is a quite nice folding bike. "

And this article is also useful for me.
 http://www.foldingbikeguru.com/schwinn-loop-7-speed-folding-bike-review/ 


And even found a fold and unfold video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uKY2D9vHQQ

A little hard to handle for Mr. WheelP. the first time, and since then he doesn't want to bother doing, but I should try some days.

Recently I found that I could use the 6th gear right away after start and it made it much easier to ride for me.  And I could start even with 5th gear on slightly up-slope.
And small number gear are convenient to use when I got tired and felt weak in my legs.  This is a totally amazing great discovery for me.

The biggest reason why I like my Novara J. so much better than my Schwinn Loop is the Loop's heavy weight.  5 lbs difference right now.

But I found another difficulty today.  That was the seat which was a little far from the handle, so I asked him if it's adjustable or not.  He said that he could do a little, and did it for me.
That little difference turned out to be quite a big difference to me, so I had to enjoy another ride today.

Before:  

After: 

Because I can reach the handle easily, I could lift the seat higher.  And it made pedaling more enjoyable.

It feels new! 

Since the weather here will bring another rainfall soon, I need my Novara to stay on our bike trainer.  Meanwhile I should get used to the Schwinn Loop more and enjoy it.

We read that front tire should be raised up to balance the trainer, so he made nice stand.  

It seemed easier for my arms.

After long rain feels so good!

Finally we could ride under the sunlight today.  Everybody's garden looked so beautiful with healthy trees and flowers.

Further view was great too.

I still need to get used to the folding bike.  But at least I found 6th gear  is quite comfortable to use.  I just need to train my legs to keep up on any up slopes around here.

At least I could ride over 10 miles on the folding bike.  ... nothing is good and comfortable as my lovely NovJ.
 

It's gone?!! .. No, RAIN came back!

"It stopped!  Let's ride, honey!"
We jumped on the bikes with our speed, of course.  We rode carefully not running onto manhole lids, puddles, and piled old leaves etc.  It was fun for a while.   I could hear wheel spray crashing onto fenders.  That sounds were very comfortable for me.

Then, rain began falling more and more.  Finally we gave up riding in half an hour.  Afterwards we felt very tired and couldn't believe it!  Just riding a measly 4 miles made us so tired??  Rain is scary for old folks' body.

Rain.., Bike trainer, the folding bike!

We've had rain for two weeks now. We need to setup our bike trainer whenever we want to use it.  So my lovely bicycle was put on the trainer for a while.

In the garage, if I open the door, I can see the view outside, and also Mr. WheelP. managed to find the close spot for putting the old odometer, so I didn't get bored so easily like before.

At least I can check how long a distance I pedaled, that's very important to me.

Unlike me he doesn't care the distance, he just set to see the time which I just can't stand.  It's boring.

Meanwhile I decided to use our folding bike for road biking regularly.  Luckily the folding bike has fenders on both wheels!! which I didn't notice before.  Because I didn't know the necessity.

I really wanted to try it riding on wet roads, but we couldn't in the morning.  

Then, we had a chance in the afternoon!  
Even though the folding bike handle is wobbly and it's hard to get speed because of the small tires, I was happy to ride with my new interest.
Next time I need to find the appropriate gear to use for each slope.

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.

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




 

I wish I could ride like him....

Mr. WhP's test riding my bike path in the garden.  I'm crazy about making a path and want to ride onto it right now.

Even on the narrow stony bumpy path he could go.

Afterwards the up slope was just fine.
Because he rode with a smile on his bicycle.  I asked him to ride mine to see any problems.  Especially my big wide handle.

He rode nicely again and even more smile on his face.  My bike is lighter than his and so much easier to pedal.  But at the curves he guessed I might have a hard time to turn the big handle while moving my body a little bit out of the way.

So I widened some parts of the path.
And I asked him to test our folding bike too.  And he did beautifully even though he told me that the folding bike was much more difficult than his bike.

I tried anyway.  I crashed into the Kale plants and the other side of the flower garden.  But from here I did ride a little bit.

I was grinding my teeth to keep going.
I need to practice again to be relaxed.
I fell again. But I want to practice tomorrow again, if I'm lucky, I might find a way to ride onto the path.

Light riding day

No way to take a trip yet, because of our energy level.  
It's hot again today.  We pushed ourselves a little to go out for biking late afternoon.  It was close to 90 F, but as soon as we started riding we felt comfortable enough.  Then gusty wind started blowing against us.  We had a quite nice workout today.

When we got back home, we felt much better.  But our bodies, especially our legs, thighs, and feet were stiff and in pain strong enough to notice.  It has been always like that on our bodies afterwards.  How come we didn't feel too tired or any severe pain while we were riding, I wonder???

Anyway today's record is:
Distance: 8.6 miles, Time:  1hour 07, Max 14.5 mph, Average:  7.6 mph 

I used the folding bike.  Somehow, maybe the weight point is lower than a regular bike, I felt it easy to handle.  Even though I had a little hard time to start pedaling after stop when I started tired, I got a much better feeling to ride the folding bike.  I just need to get used to it more, especially for starting on up slopes.

 

Faithfully and patiently practice and practice...

In fact my favorite time to bike is in early morning when it is cool.  But we have never done that so far.  So always end up around noon or later after noon when it's cooler.

We rode on community roads; I took the folding bike again.
Distance:  10.1 miles, Average Speed:  7.7 mph, Max speed:  15.7 mph, Time:  1h 19,  459.8 cal

Starting got much better except still a little wobbly sometimes.  Stopping was still poor.

The bicycling made us happy, even though it was hot, so sweat a lot, and gusty winds blew mercilessly on the up slope.

We're looking for good bike trails or roads.

Oh, I didn't know my saddle height was higher than before when I rode last Sunday, and I was fine.  So I changed the folding bike's saddle too.  Pedaling on the slope got much easier today.

I really liked the music video on May 23rd.  I love her song too.

Neighborhood ride

Since I rode the Schwinn folding bike, I used "cyclometer" in my smart phone.  That's very interesting.

Distance: 9.5 miles, Average Speed: 7.8 mph, 
Max Speed: 16.8 mph, Time: 1'13''16   Burned: 432cal

Practice--- Start and Stop.  Keep the speed on up-slope. Standing on the pedals.  Look back on the left side at on-coming cars for a moment. 

Found, just before pedal down for start, should use left hand brake to start smoothly.

Even riding this folding bike, I could ride on up-slope faster than before.

One month passed since we started.

Since we started biking for more distance, a month has already past.  Now we can see some benefit from that.

*Mrs. WhP's weight reduced 2.4 lb, unlike his which is the same as a month ago.

*Both our appetites got much smaller and controllable and feel much happier.  

*His heavy clogging throat and noisy snoring at night changed to much quieter and almost no snoring and we both have been sleeping very well. (We also decided and have been trying not to eat any foods or drink any beverage after 8 pm, besides water or hot water.)


We still need to train ourselves to go to bed earlier than midnight.
Then we would get more energy, I guess.

Today I rode our folding bike instead of my bike to check if I can handle it better than before.  Yes, I feel much more fun to ride than before.  The heavy handle didn't feel so much.  I could practice standing again, and I could do better than yesterday.  And I practiced pedaling faster with small number of gear on right hand.

We had to go out soon, so we were talking "Let's have just short biking." 

6-05-15 Morning bike +

The weather man said it's going to be over 80 F today.  So we rode in the morning today.  Mr. WhP is always not awake completely in the morning.  In addition he is draggy.
So I took our folding bike today which is very heavy handle and pedals.  At the beginning I had a little hard time to start.  The handle is too easy to move around, but finally I got used to it.

We did an hour bike.  At the end my butt started getting sore, groaning with small voice I came back home.  I have to reduce my weight! Poor my butty.

It's so beautiful today.  I want to go somewhere for biking.  But I have a lot of chore to do.  agrrrr...

It was sooo hot in the afternoon that I couldn't finish all the chores.  And I felt very strange because of the heat even inside of our house.  As if "I'm going to get sick..." 

So I decided to go out for a ride again. He was ready, too!
Oh, my goodness!!  We got really crazy ... The temperature of our back yard still showed over 80 F!

But it was breezy as usual, and we were getting better.  In addition I asked him to raise my seat a little bit when he adjusted his seat, so I got a new feeling for my bike riding.
Some part of community roads are private, so we try not to go too fast.  But main road are free to speed up.  Even speed limit is 25 mph, no way older people like us can break it.  

So, the second ride result is:

Average speed of the afternoon ride is better than the morning.
And,  total distance we rode today is 6.34+6.49=12.83 miles.  We couldn't break our record today.  But we rode in different condition and we felt much better from sweating!

By the way, quite a few very older people were walking with their dogs in such a condition in the late afternoon.  That made me surprised.

5-14-2015 Sonoma Bike Path

Nowadays the weather will change unexpectedly.  So we drove out after putting the new seat on the folding bike.  I rode the folding bike and he rode his bike on part of the bike path around the Depot Museum in the city of Sonoma.  Maybe about 1.5 miles.

Next time we should ride on the trail at a regional park.
http://parks.sonomacounty.ca.gov/Activities/Cycling.aspx