The protectors around us

Keeping folks out of the ditch since 1924
Kilworth, ON
April 2014
For more Thematic landscapes, here here

I've been taking my bike out for shakedown rides to get a feel for the saddle and slowly work myself back into bike shape. I first wrote about it here, and since then I've gradually pushed the length of each ride up and allowed myself to get further from home.

Sure, it's just a bike ride, but this year it's somehow become something more, I don't know, meaningful. And I'm grateful for that. I guess you appreciate the seemingly mundane skill of riding a bicycle after you've come within millimetres of losing that ability. Mark another thing I no longer take for granted.

I'm still nowhere near setting any speed records, and strangely I'm absolutely fine with that. I've added a mirror to the bike and tossed my old, finicky Cateye Vectra (don't laugh) computer in place of a Garmin GPS unit, so I'm still getting used to the new gear. And as it becomes more normal to me, I'm incrementally pushing my average speeds back toward where they used to be. Will I get there? Don't really know and don't really care. For now, all that matters is that I'm out there.

I'm still stopping for rests along the way. Not necessarily because I need to, but because I feel the need to soak up more from the places I've been. I can't very well say I've "been" somewhere if all I did was roll through it at 30 km/h. So if I see a particularly scenic spot, I'm just as likely to stop and drink it in for a few minutes. And if I take a picture to remember the moment, so much the better.

Your turn: When you travel - on a bike, in a car, in a plane, whatever - do you take stops along the way? What do you see?