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The very last load from Burlington to Somerville last week was to get the last essential item left there: my bicycle. I put it on the rack, drove it straight to Wheelworks, and dropped it off.
Mind, I haven't ridden the thing in *years* -- certainly not since mid-2010 (when my life fell apart), and probably not since sometime before then. So it needed a tuneup and cleaning in the worst way. They told me that they'd need a week; in practice it took slightly longer, but under the circumstances I'm not going to complain. They called me last night to tell me it was ready, and I just rode it home from Porter.
Playing with HubWay last fall had reminded me that I like bicycling (always have -- in high school, when I was in much better shape, I usually did 15-20 miles a day), but I had forgotten that *man* -- it's so much better with a really sweet bike.
It's a Specialized Sequoia, which I bought shortly after we moved to Burlington. The theory had been that I would be biking a lot more now that I was out in the True Suburbs. In practice, while the area near our house is quite nice, we were bounded by roads that were large and fast enough that I never really liked biking on them. Riding to work (about 4.5 miles) made lots of sense hypothetically, but it was Route 62 almost the entire way: fast and curvy, full of over-tired commuters, so I discovered that actually doing that ride felt faintly suicidal.
Of course, biking in the city isn't exactly going to be the countryside where I grew up. (In the suburbs around Princeton, which were truly bucolic back in those days.) But at least it's *obviously* a little dangerous, and the cars aren't going so fast. (I did get a reflective vest for night, though.)
And the bicycle -- really, it's a bit overkill for me: very light, and thoroughly stripped-down, designed more for distance biking than the practical stuff I'm going to be doing. (I probably need to add a water bottle and a kickstand.) But it weighs about half what one of those HubWay bikes does, and responds beautifully. It's kind of like driving my car: I *can* drive pretty much anything, but every time I have to rent I am reminded of how comfortable my Camry feels, just *right* for me.
Combine that with the beautiful day, and I actually found myself reluctant to head home. I may yet finish this, go work for an hour or two, and then just go out on the bike for a while. There's nothing quite like truly stretching my legs to make it feel like spring...
Mind, I haven't ridden the thing in *years* -- certainly not since mid-2010 (when my life fell apart), and probably not since sometime before then. So it needed a tuneup and cleaning in the worst way. They told me that they'd need a week; in practice it took slightly longer, but under the circumstances I'm not going to complain. They called me last night to tell me it was ready, and I just rode it home from Porter.
Playing with HubWay last fall had reminded me that I like bicycling (always have -- in high school, when I was in much better shape, I usually did 15-20 miles a day), but I had forgotten that *man* -- it's so much better with a really sweet bike.
It's a Specialized Sequoia, which I bought shortly after we moved to Burlington. The theory had been that I would be biking a lot more now that I was out in the True Suburbs. In practice, while the area near our house is quite nice, we were bounded by roads that were large and fast enough that I never really liked biking on them. Riding to work (about 4.5 miles) made lots of sense hypothetically, but it was Route 62 almost the entire way: fast and curvy, full of over-tired commuters, so I discovered that actually doing that ride felt faintly suicidal.
Of course, biking in the city isn't exactly going to be the countryside where I grew up. (In the suburbs around Princeton, which were truly bucolic back in those days.) But at least it's *obviously* a little dangerous, and the cars aren't going so fast. (I did get a reflective vest for night, though.)
And the bicycle -- really, it's a bit overkill for me: very light, and thoroughly stripped-down, designed more for distance biking than the practical stuff I'm going to be doing. (I probably need to add a water bottle and a kickstand.) But it weighs about half what one of those HubWay bikes does, and responds beautifully. It's kind of like driving my car: I *can* drive pretty much anything, but every time I have to rent I am reminded of how comfortable my Camry feels, just *right* for me.
Combine that with the beautiful day, and I actually found myself reluctant to head home. I may yet finish this, go work for an hour or two, and then just go out on the bike for a while. There's nothing quite like truly stretching my legs to make it feel like spring...