No, I’m not in a bad mood or feeling misanthropic, though that does happen sometimes. The title is actually a reference to my other bike. I don’t always go out and about on my big Yuba, Rosamond in tow. (We’ll, not really in tow because she is in front, but you know what I mean.) Sometimes I actually get time to myself.
When I started biking again last month I set a goal to use my car as little as possible. Although I did not set an exact amount, I had in mind only for orchestra rehearsals on Monday, which end late and are a 25 mile round trip, and the occasional errand that involves hauling more than I can fit on the bike in either size or quantity. I haven’t kept exact count, but I have driven less than 10 times in the last 3.5 weeks, a big change from driving pretty much every day.
In any case, today I had some time off from caring for R. Originally it was meant to be time for a piano lesson, but that fell through, so I had some time to do whatever else I wanted. Initially I was really excited about biking to the tea shop in Ballard, getting lunch, and doing some writing. I hopped on the bike and headed down. On the way to the tea shop I remembered that the biscuit place was nearby and decided to head there since they are always so busy.
Lunch was good, but then I remembered I had an errand to run that required the car. Two of my friends and I made wine this year and it’s time to bottle. I needed to head to the homebrew store and pick up supplies, which included eight cases of glass wine bottles. I know some folks would have done that by bike, and I’m confident I could have loaded them, but I didn’t want to break such an expensive purchase and the store isn’t in a very bike friendly area.
So, in short, I had a nice ride that was cut too short, and forgot to buy corks at the store, equally as important as bottles. Luckily we ended up rescheduling for unrelated reasons so I can go get them today.
In another area of my quest to bike more I rode the Surly again that night to go to my aikido practice. It felt good, though between biking and aikido I was completely beat. Needless to say I slept well last night.
