Life continues to evolve around here. A bit over a year ago the OFM gave up SightSeer his beloved bicycle because he was no longer safe riding a performance bike. After a mourning period for the end of a life long joy in riding bikes, the OFM put his mind to work to see if there was any bikes he could still ride. It has been a year long search and research project.
He worked his way to what used to be called slack geometry bikes. These are bikes that are easier to ride gently and in fairly straight lines. They do not do log jumping and crazy fast speeds very well. What they so well is social riding that lets you look at things and talk to a fellow rider without having to “drive the bike” for every minute.
The OFM has tried several of the different styles like crank forward and others. Years ago he rode a recumbent bike so he has experience with them also. The one thing he noticed was that the bikes with the drop center (old name for them was womens bikes) was much better for him when stopping and starting. He no longer had to balance on one bad knee leg to swing his other bad knee leg over the seat while twisting his less than perfect hip in odd angles. He could get both feet on the ground immediately and them take his time getting the rest of the way off the bike.
His research had led him to several easy to balance and ride multi-geared social drop centered bike. Yesterday while over at the grands home, my wonderful DIL mention, again, that she had no intention of ever riding her bike again and maybe it would work for the OFM.
The OFM had done some tuning on her bike a few years ago and recalled it as a very comfortable and docile riding bike. He went out to the garage to refresh his memory and liked what he saw. He sat on it and rolled in the driveway a bit and like it even better. Into the bed of Sierra it went. Today he has spent a bit of time getting in some riding it and found it to be just about perfect for his limited abilities.
So now the OFM has wheels again. Back in Rockport he had found that walking was causing lots of knee and hip pains unless done at a very slow pace. The OFM is looking for aerobic activity to keep him heart healthy and smaller stomached. Today the first ride was about 2 miles and had the OFM breathing moderately heavily.The late evening ride was about twice as long but at a slightly slower pace so the OFM wasn’t causing as high of a heart rate. It is not good to be sedentary for months and then jump out and cause your heart to have to work really hard. Here is the yet unnamed new OFM Teams member.
Now that there is a bike back on the Teams it is time to re-think our plans and available options for trying to have tooooo much fun.
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