Tag: Riding (Page 1 of 2)

Bike enthusiasts and advocates often try to promote bicycling by pointing out the health benefits or the benefits to the health of our planet.

Both of those things are true – riding a bike improves your fitness, so consequently it improves your health.

Riding a bike instead of taking a car is good for the environment.

Why I ride has little to do with either of those things.

Basically, I ride because it is fun.  Pure and simple fun.

Why do you ride?

We took a ride east yesterday at an easy pace and just enjoyed the weather and the views.

When you are on a bike you see everything.

You talk to a lot of it too – cows, horses, a rabbit.  You stop to take pictures of things you wouldn’t even notice in a car, much less want a picture of.

Like this grass – which I thought was beautiful.

Not to mention the beautiful blue sky.

Leaves that haven’t turned are on the ground – if you’re lucky they fall around you as you’re riding by.  I love that – raining leaves.  We had such a hot and dry summer I’m afraid we may be seeing all the fall foliage we are going to get.

At least we still get the other parts of autumn – cooler temps and beautiful sunlight and that sky.

Maybe the sky always looks like this, but here in the heat belt, the sun is so hot and BRIGHT for so many months you actually can’t look up at the sky until mid-late September.

The grasses, like buffalo grass and the native grasses that grow along the roads, also change color.  The color change is more subtle, but it’s there.  At least to my eye.

Yesterday, Mark and I rode with a couple we met last weekend from the local club.

The route they took us on had our favorite bike route quality – light traffic.  Another plus, was the route was almost entirely on well maintained roads.

It honestly doesn’t take much more than that to satisfy a cyclist.

It was a beautiful day with that wonderful autumn sunlight hitting the trees and meadows and wildflowers along the road. Another one of those bucolic days. There was a section of hills for several miles, but otherwise nice and relatively flat.

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We rode 38 miles and probably encountered less than 20 vehicles. Whatever the number they just sort of faded into the background – not often the case when you ride.

Another great thing about riding in this “new to us” area, is the number of other people on bikes we saw! We have seen more bicyclists in the last two weeks, then we saw in the past year on our previous routes.

This area south and east of where we live attracts many bicyclists because of the light traffic, good roads and mix of flat terrain and hills.  It is well known and well-utilized.

Besides it just being nice to see other friendly faces on bikes, riding in an area known to have a high number of bike riders means drivers are more aware than the drivers in the areas less frequented by cyclists. Overall, more awareness by drivers – means more safety for cyclists.

Another plus, the routes are well marked by Team Bike Buddies.  Glad we “discovered” this better area to ride before fall is behind us. 

There isn’t a better time of year to ride - at least to me; and now we have better routes to explore and more nice weather ahead to do it.

For those of you that bike, you’ve probably heard of Bike Shop Girl. She was hit by a car recently – she is okay physically, but understandably (at least to me) she isn’t doing as well mentally and emotionally.

The post quoted below by Kent’s Bike Blog, speaks to the risks of riding and not riding. It’s excellent, I hope you’ll visit his website and read the full post.

Life’ll Kill Ya   (Excerpt from Kent’s Bike Blog)

My Twitter friend Arleigh (aka Bike Shop Girl aka @arsbars) was hit by a car last week. Prior to being wisely “advised not to write, blog, tweet or facebook update until things get settled,” she shared these thoughts on Twitter:

“Mentally I am really screwed up. I’m a safe rider and this was a calm afternoon and bike commute. Nothing I could have done different. Scary.”

and

“Bicycling, commuting & encouraging others to do the same is my life. I was just hurt badly by that lifestyle..not sure how to swallow that.”

I’ve never met Arleigh in the real world (the one with bikes and cars and roads and traffic) but we’ve traded bits and bytes and thoughts and pictures and I think of her as a kindred spirit, a fellow rider and a friend. I wanted to write a “it’ll be OK, get back in the saddle, keep ’em rolling” kind of thing but as Arleigh noted, things like this are scary. Damn scary. (Read More)

Autumn is the best time of year to bike, at least in Oklahoma – and I would imagine, in most places.

The winds are lighter, the weather is less stormy and one of my favorite things – the sunlight has a golden hue.

I refer to it as Tuscan sunlight because it reminds me of the sunlit villages in Tuscany when we were there several years ago. 

Cetona, Italy



Nathaniel Hawthorne on Autumn