“Remoted - Hybrid” – Day 558 (Saturday)

Autumn has begun to leave me its highly personal calling cards. It’s a nearly annual event that around October, my fingernails start splitting and breaking and nosebleed season begins. For many years, insomnia arrived with October, but it hasn’t been as bad in the past couple years. This morning kicked off with a gusher of a nosebleed almost immediately after getting out of bed. It happened again a few more times throughout the day. Hello fall! Now we’ll just wait for the turning of the leaves and the breaking of the nails.

Today saw a couple reboots that really boosted the spirits. There was a meetup with a fellow banker who is in the midst of a closet purge and offered me items from her closet cleanout. I left her home with several skirts and tops, and a couple dresses and jackets. One time, when I was in fifth or sixth grade, Mummu’s coworker gave her some clothes for me that a young relative had outgrown. It felt like Christmas. This morning felt like that. 

On the drive home from the closet reboot, a call came in from a friend asking if I had a bike and if I wanted to go riding on the Rail Trail. Umm…. Yes, and yes. The cell signal cut out before we could finalize things, but when I got home, I rushed to pump up the tires. The last time I mowed, I noticed the bike tires were flat. If they held air, bike riding was a go. Oh, and if the bike fit into the Jeep.

Two-wheeled
 instrument of torture.

The tires pumped up nicely and after a while they were still holding air. I sent a picture of pumped up tires to my friend to signal riding was “a go.” We made plans to meet at a trail access and parking area about halfway between our homes. 

The old Honda had a rear mounted spare tire that my bike rack fit onto, but the Jeep doesn’t have a mounted spare. The back seats were flipped down, fingers were crossed, and the bike fit into the expanded cargo area with minimal jockeying and zero swearing. Yes, zero swearing. Thank you, Jeep cargo area.

Had I done any of the riding that was imagined when I bought the bike a few years ago, I would have known how close the rail trail is to home. As it turned out, the bike was ridden on Lowell streets for three miles the first day I got it, and it was so stressful I never got on the bike again. Thanks to my friend, I rode today, and finally know close the Rail Trail is. 

The traffic from Lowell was heavy and annoying, but the traffic in Chelmsford was worse. Halfway to the meeting spot, I saw an adult and a kid riding bikes and wearing helmets and realized I had forgotten mine. The bike riding supplies have been scattered all over the house. The windbreaker with the pocket large enough for the phone and keys was found in the hiking backpack. The water bottle was tucked on a high shelf in the dish cabinet. The padded bike shorts and gloves were nowhere to be found. I didn’t even try to look for the biking shoes that can clip onto one side of the cleated pedals.

Shady trail.

We rode from our meeting point to one end of the trail and back, a distance of about ten miles. The trail is mostly shady with only a couple busy crossovers involving street traffic. There were underpasses with fun acoustics and several potential dining spots along the trail. There were inline skaters, walkers, and cyclists, but the trail traffic wasn’t overly crowded.  

After loading our bikes into our vehicles, we spent a few minutes sitting on a bench near the pond near the trail. The water was still and reflected the sky. The sun was warm and bright. It was relaxing, and a needed break from the usual focus of dog blindness and insulin and the mice that continue to brazenly invade the house and evade all the many traps that were set.

The overall feeling of the day was much needed rejuvenation thanks to the interpersonal connections and outdoor activity in beautiful weather. Lessons were also learned, primarily that the bike is quite uncomfortable. The handle bar is too low or my arms are too short to reach it, but the result was my shoulders and neck becoming very tense. To add to that, the seat is basically an instrument of torture. It’s hard and narrow and felt like sitting on a brick. Adjustments and remedies for the bike have joined the list with dozens of other tasks to do and problems to solve.