August 15, 2001
I love to ride my bike in the dark. Well, I've grown to love it. As with most things, it started with necessity and grew to a need. It started occasionally and grew to be almost daily. Sounds like a drug habit, huh? Much better than being hooked on pain killers, though. Let me back up a bit.
I'm fat. There, I said that up front, just in case you were wondering. I'm no skinny little triathlete type person, I'm not even moderately overweight. No, on the chart at the doctor's office for my height next to my weight it says "seriously obese." OK, so that's out of the way. Now you know one reason I like to ride my bike - it keeps me from getting fatter.
I also like ice cream. And beer. Sometimes together (but not in the same bowl, just at the same time, like steak and potatoes, which I also happen to like). This keeps me fat, and my cycling keeps me out of the World Record Books. Remember the guy they buried in the piano case? I might fit in a cello case now.
A couple of summers ago I would ride my bike all summer long in the afternoons, loving that it was light until 8 or later, and I actually managed to drop some weight / get in shape doing this. Then work hassles and home things picked up a bit, and now I feel bad going for a bike ride after work and leaving Ellen stranded with the Wild Things. Plus, when it is 102 before the heat index is figured, it's just too dang hot. So I strapped some lights on my bike and and started going riding after the kids went to bed.
This worked surprisingly well for a while. However, the kids started wanting to stay up later, and I found that if I got a good workout in from say 10:00 pm to 11:30, I couldn't get myself to sleep until 1 or 2 in the morning. That doesn't work well with getting up to go to work. Plus, I started reading about how good it is to exercise early in the morning (I'll stick a link or two in here if I remember) so I decided to try and ride in the morning. Morning has the added benefit of very little traffic and cooler temps in the summer. It is often still 90 degrees at 10:00 PM here in the summer, whereas in the morning it is often 75. It makes a difference.
I think my first morning rides were in the middle of winter. I piled on a few layers, stumbled outside at 5:30 or so, and rode for thirty minutes or so until I couldn't stand it anymore. When I came home I'd crawl back into bed as long as I could before it was time to get ready for work. Gradually I found myself getting in better shape and as the weather warmed into spring and summer I started riding more often.
Now I've got it down to a science. I wake up just around 4:45, and lately I haven't even needed my alarm clock, I just wake up. I get dressed and head out by 5 or so. I ride the same route, mostly because I don't want to figure out if another route will get me home in time. My lights (turbo-cats) are fantastic, offering a low and high beam arrangement; I use a Lightman strobe on my back which is eyecatching, and have some rather geeky reflector tabs that I put around each leg, so as my legs spin a driver will see a yellow patch going up and down very quickly on either side of the bike. It's much easier to go in the summer since it's about 75 F out at that time in the morning, and rarely rains here.
It is amazing to me what a bike ride can do for my mood. This morning for example. It had been nearly two weeks since I had been on the bike (I had been sick for the first week and lazy for the second) and I was sure there was no way I could put in my normal loop, which is around 17 miles or so. I was also pretty sure the world was coming to an end (no, not because war is about to happen in the middle east, or George W wants to rape our environment and ruin any semblance of international relations, or because the world seems to be rapidly running out of cheap oil and fresh water and other things we kinda seem to need; no, I was sure the world was going to end when I heard about the "Facts of Life Reunion" coming soon). So with a heavy heart and a big yawn I woke up about two minutes before my alarm went off, got dressed and went outside. In no time I'm pedaling down my street, then out onto University, past the Exxon (where their cheapest gas is 25 cents more a gallon than Sam's sells it for a half mile away) and over to The Dark Side. That means over the bypass, away from street lights and most traffic. Out a few miles to HWY 30, onward to the Green Acres gas station and bait shop, took a right on Bird Pond Road, into nothingness. The moon was up (waning crescent) and Orion was visible, along with a few other of the brighter stars. I passed Jim (but I didn't know his name at the time) in an orange safety vest, carrying a flashlight. He said "Trying to beat the heat, eh?" and all I only had time to laugh before he was behind me. A slight breeze turned to a tailwind as I turned back toward home along the Hwy 6 bypass (now called the Earl Rudder Freeway because the city council didn't want people to keep talking about bypassing College Station).
I managed the seventeen miles in my normal time, quite the feat considering being off the bike. I was home by 6 am, which gave me plenty of time to check my e-mail, eat a decent breakfast, and read all the latest bad news before waking the kids and getting ready for work.
Life is good again, even if they are trying to bring back Facts of Life.
Back to my opinion and rant page.