Photos

I've had a great blog post floating around in my head for the past few days, but currently I am too hot to write it. It is hard to write about biking and enjoying the outdoors and being inconvenienced by everyday tasks such as buying milk when you are sweltering in the shade at the end of September.  I'm o.k. with hot until August 31st, but I have little tolerance for it after that.  Not sure why that is since September can sometimes be the hottest month of the year where I live.  It is not logical and certainly doesn't change the weather, but that is the way I feel.

Now, I say that, knowing that there are some of you who live in parts of the world that would love for it to be hot right now.  You are thinking, "Boy, it is getting cold already, and I'm not quite ready for the snow and the dark and the multiple layers of clothing that one must put on just to survive 5 seconds outside."  You are right.  Sun is good, and I'm going to stop complaining about it and show you our rides.

This is the Artist's bike.  We found it in the back of our garage and best we can tell it is a late 1950s - early 1960s Raleigh made in England. This bike was my grandfather's, and when we bought our home from my grandma, it was left in the back of the garage.  It has become ours on the basis that we have lived here seven years, and no one else in the family has claimed it.  (Cousins, you had your chance.)  Plus we needed a bike since the Artist gave me his at the beginning of this adventure.  It is way cool to ride some history (so the Artist says) though has some quirks such as the breaks don't really function, and since they are rod breaks we haven't found anyone who knows how to fix them.  I don't know much about bikes, but apparently these are unique.   The Artist just coasts into stops.  (He is a much better cyclist then me.)

Here is my bike, an automatic with coaster breaks.  It is very steady, since I am a jittery biker at best.  I love my coaster breaks since I have trouble controlling both my arms and my legs at the same time while riding a two wheeled balancing act that requires a lot of leg motion.  Stepping back to stop just makes sense.

I'll show you the kid's bikes later when it has cooled down.  Until then, I'm drinking lots of water and thinking of warm woolens and cool nights.  Heat is all in the mind, right?