I recently had my bike refurbished and was having a blast doing short rides in another nearby neighborhood. From my house to the other development had me going up our street, over on a mildly busy country road, and then into the loop. Once around and then back home was exactly a mile. How handy, right?
I had worked up to two miles and then one day, when trying to get off, my foot got caught on the bar. It was weird to be suspended there and unable lift my leg that one more half inch to free my foot. I used to be able to push off, swing my right leg back over the rear wheel, settle on the seat, then place my foot down on the pedal. The reverse of this enabled me to hop off. Smoothly, gracefully, and safely. Nope, can’t do that move anymore.
As I said, I got stuck. My new chain had stretched just a bit and fell off so I needed to dismount to fix it. And there was me, balanced with one foot sticking straight out in front of me and the other on the asphalt. I kept feeling like I was going to fall backward. Seconds stretch out when you are facing a possible serious injury. I focused all my will to stay upright telling myself several times, “You will NOT fall down!” I was really thinking it was going to happen…
Then I looked down and the weight of my head tipped the balance in my favor! I did a couple of hops back away from the bike and then had room to pull my foot the rest of the way off and down to the ground.
The takeaways from this incident are:
- I need to continue riding to help me with my balance.
- Although I can ride, I will need a step-through frame (aka: a girl’s bike).
- Riding will continue to rebuild the muscles in my legs after the knee surgery and it is not so boring!
- Riding alone is maybe not so smart. I need a friend to ride with. Just in case.
- I need to think about going to one of the walking/biking trails, after all, we have so many! Then, I won’t have to worry about giant tractors on the country roads and/or the pick up trucks that look like they guzzle steroids instead of gasoline. <—- click here
I will be riding again soon, but need to sell a few things to afford the new girly bike. Which leads into my next post on Swedish Death Cleaning…
Life on the Farmlet 