Getting Back In the Saddle, For the New Year

 Juxtaposition

The band has taken up so much of my time, these past few months, that I have all but ceased to think of myself as a cyclist.  Sure, I ride back and forth to work, occasionally, and run some errands.  But, I haven't gone on a lot of rides, and none of any appreciable distance, in quite a while.

The silver lining to that is that my Achilles tendon has been less stressed, and I hope that it is pretty much healed up.  I have not experienced any pain from it, lately.  And I really hope that means that, once I get back to riding farther, and more often, I will have no problems with it.

Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I have been doing a little roller riding.  Even though there is no substitute for actual, on the ground, mileage, riding the rollers seems to bump-start my fitness pretty efficiently.  Being a bit out of shape, I find that riding in the cold is not that much fun.  I have to put so much effort into staying warm tht the ride, itself, is punishing.

So, the rollers came into the house, along with one of my all-time favorite bikes, Le Peugeot L'Orange.  Riding fixed on rollers is a lot more fun than riding with a freewheel, to me.

I sort of dropped out of the fixed-gear scene, a couple of years ago, due to a few factors.  One of those was that most of people with whom I ride don't enjoy riding fixed.  But, since I really don't get invited along on too many rides, nowadays, I suppose I might as well ride whatever I feel like. 

(It's amazing how quickly people stop inviting you along, at all, if you have a bit of a handicap on the bike, and have to turn down a few rides...)

Anyway, I think I will go back to riding a lot of fixed, this year.  I think I will even build myself up a fixed mountain bike, and do some off-roading, again.  I have missed that.  And, I have a suitable frame hanging in the shop building.

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