Friday bike

I did not go far or fast, but after a slightly horrible initial six minutes or so, the rest was genuinely enjoyable, with stretches that I would call almost exhilarating. Call it an hour and a half of fairly easy riding...

(The part I especially liked involved working very hard while riding into an intense wind on the way back up from Chambers St.! I like the windy blustery kind of riding, where you have to work hard to go not very fast--I still have a psychological obstacle on going fast. It is chilly and overcast and blustery today, a kind of weather I particularly like. I would have gone further, only things just below Chambers on the bike path suddenly got very confusing and detourish and complicated--I am sure there is a way through, but it seemed overly troublesome to dismount and sort out next steps...)

One of the few good things about being so cowardly and such a novice is that pretty much every bike ride I do increases my confidence level by about 50%. Both Tuesday's and today's were really good. Goal for today: get used to the notion that I will leave the apartment in bike shoes and accomplish all necessary locomotion on the bicycle! Also practiced going in and out of the drops--comfortable once I'm in there, but I feel wobbly coming up and down, and I am also not entirely sure I would not tip over if I stopped fairly suddenly while riding in the drops. That is something to practice...

Triaspirational interior monologue, corner of 116th and Riverside, just before getting started:

Oh, I am determined to ride on Riverside Drive down to 96th St., I was feeling fairly calm the other day in the park--it is the easiest possible road to ride on, it is true there are buses and cars parked along the side but there are no right turns, thus no cars doing disconcerting things, it is incredibly safe!--hmmm...--fortitude--OK, let me hop up onto my bike--ARGHHHH, why does the awful seat/crotch of these stupid bike pants snag like that on the seat?!?--oh dear, now I have missed that light--my heart is in my mouth, what if I stop at the light and then my pants catch again when I try and start again?!?--hmmm, maybe I am going to ride along the park walk instead--oh, why, oh why did they pave it with these awful hexagonal-tile cobble-like things?!?--A ROAD BIKE IS NOT DESIGNED FOR RIDING ON BUMPY THINGS!--especially not bumpy things with a steep downhill pitch--arghhh, death grip on brakes again, what am I doing...

But once I got into the park at 96th St. it was all fine. The one thing I do not like about the west side bike path is that it gets very confusing in the middle. There are red lights specifically for bicycles which as a law-abiding and safety-conscious person I am strongly inclined to follow (and it is not really always very easy to see where a car would come from!), only nobody else follows 'em and I certainly got some funny looks from other cyclists and pedestrians when I stopped! Indeed, at one, a construction worker just gave me a comically quizzical look and waved me on through, I felt the need to explain that I was a very timid and cautious cyclist! Hmmmm, a little more experience and I will have a better handle on all of this. It is certainly useful riding along a path that's right next to a highway but separate from it--rationally speaking, it is entirely safe, but it gets you more accustomed to the sound and proximity of serious traffic...