Susan at Middletown Obama office, originally uploaded by gertzse.

I chose to forgo bike riding this weekend in exchange for painting the enormous canvas sign above for the opening of our local Obama campaign office. You can see the sign in progress on Flickr. I’ll be volunteering throughout the campaign season … but also riding my bike as much as possible. Bicycle bumper stickers anyone?

Happy riding!

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DSC_0622.NEF, originally uploaded by gertzse.

Here is the Great Miami River at dusk as Tom and I ride on one of our nearly-nightly outings along the riverside bike trail. While its too bad that our segment of the trail doesn’t connect to anything yet, the advantage for us is that the trail and the river seem nearly like our personal backyard park. On a typical evening we may see a handful of people at most, but sometimes we are the only ones. We almost always see a blue heron or two, redwing blackbirds, geese, and a lot of other birds I’m not sure of. (If you check out rivercycle my husband might talk more about the birds.)

When I very spontaneously bought my Revive bike a few months ago as a total non-rider, I never dreamed I would see 150 miles on the odometer so soon! Yes, you fabulous cyclists out there crank out 150 miles on a sunny weekend. But I’m going from complete computer geek-hood by day, couch potato-hood by night to riding 8, or 9 miles every nice evening I can. So, happy 150 miles to the Revive and me!

Trail Mileage Guide, originally uploaded by gertzse.

Some of you may recall my post about our first ride on the Little Miami bike trail, From Zenia to Yellow Springs and Back: A Bonk and a Victory, this is our second trip, a bit longer ride, but flatter, shadier, and for me, a lot less stressful!

See the Flickr photoset for this ride.

We left Morrow mid-morning at the requisite rails to trails station plus caboose (see photos) and set off for Loveland. The bike trail was immediately lush, green, and shady. Even though the day was coolish for June, the shade was welcome and became more welcome as the day progressed. The Little Miami meanders to the right of the trail, sometimes quite wide. On this pleasant day, we saw several people in canoes. Its a popular spot; canoe liveries dot this area. Some of the trees in this area are large, maybe old growth forest? I don’t know. At this time of year, crown vetch and clover are blooming prettily along the trailside.

Well, I’m still a slow rider, maybe 8–11 miles an hour on this flatish trail. A slight grade up, a slight grade down, a flat part, repeat a bunch of times, and we go on for about 13 miles. LOTS of speedy, cool-looking men and women in bike team jerseys pass at what seemed like 50 miles an hour …. “on your left,” “thanks!” But I enjoy my ride on the Revive, and Tom enjoys his ride on the Day 6. The woodsy setting does not offer many bathroom opportunities, and I am staying well-hydrated as per my doctor, so Tom and I did have one “in the bushes” stop each before we reached Loveland. (Easier for him than me, BY FAR!)

Coming into Loveland, we were in a sweet community park, full of bicycles and children. After a quick stop at an actual bathroom (and yes, a park bathroom looks great after a bush), we stopped for a lunch outdoors at Blue Chip Cookies Bakery and Cafe. We had wrap sandwiches and mango smoothies. A mango smoothie sure goes down wonderfully after 13 miles of biking!

On the way back, because I was feeling a bit tired from the ride out, I tried to relax and really focus on enjoying the ride (process) and not think about the distance left to go (product). Tom and I both has our cameras with us, and we found numerous opportunities to stop and take photos…Tom especially, I have to say. He has some fantastic photos of flowers and insects on his blog, RiverCycle, that you should certainly check out. And, you know, we were having so much fun, it seemed that the Morrow station just popped up all of a sudden. I was tired, really tired, but I hadn’t been dwelling on it. And I made it, my longest ride ever! 26 miles total!!

My final comment relates to choosing to wear a sleeveless shirt and being photographed in it (the photos in the Flickr set). I’ve talked before about body issues in this blog, and a sleeveless shirt is just one more thing in the process of being out there. The shirt’s not flattering, but riding a bike in summer is hot work, and boy, I was so comfortable! My husband, bless his heart, is totally for me in all that I do, and the size and shape of me is part of the total package he loves. He is a good man. He also takes awesome photos of inchworms, cicadas, and more. I’m so lucky to have him as my biking pal, not to mention husband and best friend! (Love you, Tom!)
]]> http://revivingsusan.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/morrow-to-loveland-and-back-process-and-product/feed/ 2 revivingsusan http://revivingsusan.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/these-are-cool%e2%80%94-elastic-laces-for-biking-shoes/ http://revivingsusan.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/these-are-cool%e2%80%94-elastic-laces-for-biking-shoes/#comments Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:25:27 +0000 revivingsusan http://revivingsusan.wordpress.com/?p=46 Continue reading →]]>

Some of my favorite non-biking shoes—Keen sandals— use a bungee-type lace. I love the neatness and convenience of snugging up the elastic with the little rachet thingy. So, I decided to try to find a similar replacement lace for my cycling shoes. I found some goofy kid-type elastic laces, and some elastic laces where the two lace ends remained floppy and separated. Not right for me…they had to be crimped nicely together at the end like in the Keens! Finally, I happened upon Locklaces. I installed the laces in my cycling shoes following the instructions (easy!), and voila, cool bungee laces that work perfectly and look awesome.

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Wow, that title sounds pretty serious for my little biking blog! But I admit that I was thinking about this topic as I enjoyed my 7 mile bike ride tonight. See, I’ve been a person like many of us who’s been fat and been thin but never been fit. And I’ve also been a person who’s had sizeism issues about whether people who are too fat (ME included) should be out in public doing something that looks sweaty and unflattering or involves revealing parts of them (or ME) better kept under wraps.

And because of my self-censure, I’ve waited to do a lot of things until I was OK to do them in my own eyes. “I have to lose 50 pounds before I do this. I have to fit into a different pair of pants before I do that.” But years go by, and for a wide array of reasons, the pounds and the pants don’t change. And the adventure remains untried.

So, to the bicycle. I started this blog with an honest and quite tubby picture of myself on the bike. (See The Unvarnished Truth.) The bike has over 80 miles on it now (I started the blog after I had some miles on it, plus I missed some mileage reports.) I have not lost a single pound (!), but I am riding better and faster and having more fun doing it every day. My super family physician, Dr. Anne Nestor, gave me advice on safe cycling after my Yellow Springs bonk (eating and drinking right, not overheating, etc., and actually taught me the word bonk) and also told me to stop weighing myself so much and maybe just stop weighing myself at all at home. She is so pleased that I am out there doing this cycling, and she doesn’t want it to be about size and weight but about health and fun. That is so freeing coming from a doctor!

I’ve greeted so many people while out riding, and almost all of them say “cool bike,” not “why are you, a fat person riding a bicycle?”, and for the most part, the people I meet are not potential candidates for America’s Next Top Model any more than I am. Plus, lots of women my age say to me that they wish they would get out and do something like I’m doing.

So now I’m feeling a little more jazzed up, and I’m thinking about some actual cycling togs. Junonia and Team Estrogen both make plus-size cycling clothes for women… and if a company makes an actual product for a group of people, well, then a large enough (so to speak) group of people must exist to make the business worthwhile. Hey larger cycling women and men of the world, if you are reading, I hope you’ll welcome me to your ranks.

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DSCN1208, originally uploaded by gertzse.

You see me here at the Zenia Station, my fingers held victoriously after a 20 mile round trip last weekend.

See more photos of the trip on Flickr.

Since 6 or 7 miles around the Great Miami River trail near my house has become a fairly easy ride, I wasn’t planning to be overly challenged by going 10 miles each way to Yellow Springs and back with a lunch break in between. But not eating in advance, heat, allergies, and a constant 3 percent uphill grade had their way with me. Here’s the story. Don’t worry, you already know it has a happy ending…

Zenia, Ohio is fairly famous for being destroyed not once, but twice by tornadoes. The small city is also where a number of bicycle trails branch off from the station in the photo above. According to the Miami Valley Trails website “The Xenia Trails Station was built on the site of the old Baltimore and Ohio freight yards on the Miami Street Extension. The Station, built on 7 acres, is the hub of all trail activities in Greene County, Ohio. From it trails lead in five directions to Dayton ( East) , Springfield (North) , Jamestown (Southeast) , London (Northeast) and almost to Cincinnati (South) “

We started out later than planned, in mid-afternoon, and the sun was hot. The trail North, towards Yellow Springs, leaves Xenia Station and proceeds through downtown. After meandering along on sidewalks marked with wide yellow bicycle lanes, we enter the trail proper. All is well, we are proceeding out of town, and the trail starts off with a comforting downhill slope. For a while we move from cover of vegetation to view of commercial areas and back to vegetation again. The slope takes an uphill turn. Not yet uphill so that you can see a hill…that came later…but a consistent grade you can feel…no more coasting! You can see the elevation map below for the entire trail. I’m not sure what exact part we were on, but somewhere in the Northern part, not as far North as Springfield.

Now, I’m a slow rider. On flat ground, when I break the 10 mph barrier, I’m really moving! The longer I go uphill towards Yellow Springs (and its all uphill from now on, baby!), the slower I get. The “easy” ride advertised as taking about an hour is working its way towards a 2-hour ride for me. My average speed? About 6 mph. Children passed me. Little old ladies on fat-tired bikes passed me. Guys on recumbent trikes passed me. One really fast walker almost passed me.

And we stopped. We stopped for water breaks. We stopped for photo ops. We stopped because I had a major sweat emergency in my butt that was turing into a chafing situation, and I had stuff some of the toilet paper my husband brought along to blow his nose with (because of allergies) into my underwear while facing my rear towards some concealing shrubbery and smiling at passing cyclists.

The trail becomes more lush and seemingly isolated as you travel farther from Xenia. The last few miles were in some kind of wooded park. At this point I was seriously hot and tired and actually starting to feel slightly nauseated and dizzy. I might have given up if we were not so close. Then, all at once it seemed, we were there, in Yellow Springs, and the trail comes out, not on the edge or outskirts, but right in the thick of the crazy little hippie town we know and love. On a sunny summer afternoon, the hippie boomers are out and about, and the scene is resplendent with greying ponytails, incense, and tattoos on aging skin.

Sadly, I felt worse than ever… hot, dizzy, and boy, I did not want to throw up, but thought I might. My husband Tom told me to sit in the shade, and he looked for a place to get some food and drinks. I poured some water on myself and felt a little better. I drank the Gatoraide my husband brought me and that made a big difference. We ate some Chinese noodles outside (from the boxes, with chopsticks, don’t you love to do that?), and I felt a little more restored. As final sustenance for the journey back to Xenia, we decided to get some vanilla soft serve and listen to a singer outside the ice cream stand who was raining money for an organization to prevent family violence.

As we walked our bikes down the block towards the ice cream stand, we passed a trio of women out for a nice afternoon in Yellow Springs. The town has many arty and funky little shops. They asked us if we knew the directions to Young’s Jersey Dairy…and boy we did, and the reason for that requires a story of its own, so I’ll save it, but they admired our bikes, and we got to talking, and I told them I wasn’t sure I could make it back to Xenia on my bike, because getting to Yellow Springs had been so hard. They were so sweet and encouraging, and I told them I had a blog…so if you read this…hi ladies!

So, I’m a little nervous…what if I can’t make it back? But, I’ve eaten noodles and ice cream. I have more Gatoraide with me. It is downhill almost all the way back…just that uphill part at the end. Come on, I can do it! Tom’s been teaching me to gear up and really pedal on the downhill if I want to go faster, and during part of the ride back to Xenia I pedaled really fast…for me…14, 15 mph. It started to give me a weird flying sort of out of body experience…or was that the exhaustion…or the dehydration…or the remnants of the bonk I seemed to have after the ride out?

We stopped on the outskirts of Xenia for gigantic iced teas from McDonald’s. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. OK, I’ve been a non-exerciser all my life, but I’m starting to get this working hard and getting hot and sweaty and drinking something cold and good thing. Its the end and we are back in downtown Xenia almost at the station. We hear a bunch of honking and shouting from a car at the intersection, a window rolls down, and someone is shouting at us, at me, “You made it! You made it!” Its the ladies from Yellow Springs we met on the way to the ice cream stand. Ladies, I did make it.

See more photos of the trip on Flickr.

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