January 10, 2012

Cycling.

The nicer, somewhat spring-like weather of the past couple of days have really put me in the mood to start up cycling for the year. Of course, this isn’t really a practical wish, because I can barely make a ride alive in the daylight, let alone trying to ride at night. I’d have to find a back road or something if I wanted to ride at night; I’d have to only contend with a surly cow that’s busted out of her pasture or something.

Riding my bike is very relaxing for me. Once I get into the countryside and am away from the majority of traffic, my head starts to clear and I find a certain amount of peace that’s wrapped up with a tinge of excitement. The ride towards Binghamton (notice, no “p” in Binghamton) was quite relaxing for me last summer and I want to do many more of those types of rides. I already have my eye on some routes I’d like to take this coming spring and summer and I’d like to incorporate an overnight or two into the mix. I have my little cycling tent and stuff that I have only used once; I need to use it again. I need the adventure.

One thing that I found on Amazon is a charging kit for my iPhone so I can use the MapMyRide (or something like that) app that kills the battery in an hour. When you’re riding for five or more hours, it doesn’t do any good to have the iPhone go dead after only an hour. This little charging kit works like the headlights we had as kits where the power comes from a little generator on the wheel. I think it’s kind of nifty that the old technology of yesteryear can help out the new technology of today.

One of my goals for cycling this year is that I’m not going to be afraid of the hills, in fact, one of the routes I have my eye on include many of the hills I traverse during my daily commute. I figure that if a horse can yank a buggy with three men in it up a hill, I can certainly sympathize and do the same with me and my bike.

I know that Mother Nature has been a big tease thus far this winter since we haven’t had hardly any snow and the temperatures have been very spring like. The purpose of blogging about my cycling plans is two-fold: looking back at this blog entry when we finally get slammed with snow later in the season will remind me of how happy I was as a daydreamed about my plans and writing my intentions to do a lot of cycling this spring and summer commits me to the idea and reminds me that I had this conversation with myself in the first place.