Today I got on a bike for the first time in four months or so -- and on a road bike for the first time in six months or so -- and rode 55 miles and survived. Life is good!
It's the start of the New York Cycle Club's "SIG" season, which means cycling with a group every Saturday for 10 weeks and trying to teach some group riding, riding-in-traffic and general bike handling skills. Generally it's a good idea for a co-leader to have been on a bike recently. But these are less than ideal times.
Residual fitness is a godsend. And -- the fact that I haven't ridden any bike for four months notwithstanding -- the muscle memory of riding a heavy steel bike with fat tires, loaded panniers and rack trunk plus a DSLR and second lens in a waist pack makes riding a lighter steel bike with none of those extra things feel like a breeze.
Well. Maybe not a breeze exactly. But awfully nice in comparison.
We went a slightly different way to Westwood than in my previous experience, and the result was my discovery of a great abandoned-building site. I'm going to have to go back there with my camera to check it out. Very promising, I think.
In the meantime, a few more from my series of being fascinated with the abandoned structure on the upper Greenway. The shadows were nice on the way home. In the above one, I liked the juxtapositioning of the two patterny street signs vs. all the patterns in the main view. In the second, I liked that the guy was off kilter in the midst of all this patterning.
Was the abandoned structure that old brick factory-looking building before lunch? I'll ride there with you sometime.
Posted by: Hannah | March 17, 2009 at 10:05 PM
Exactly. At New Milford and Elm. Which after research I determined used to be Hackensack Waterworks and is now part of the Van Buskirk Island nature preserve. I loved it! And I sure don't remember that section from either of the previous two years, though I see it is indeed on the previous cue sheets. Let's go! (And then have lunch)
Posted by: Paula Froke | March 18, 2009 at 07:58 AM