Dips and Roadsigns...

Since this is a guy learning to ride his bike, you'll probably find many of my points as relevant as some guy learning to drive and observing that a steering wheel turns in circles and is round... like a wheel. Whoa!

Nonetheless, on today's ride, I noticed the overabundance of "trail closed" and "detour" signs. Not to worry... I was on the part that was apparently the detour and was to me, the main route. The trail that was closed was a minor turn-off point on the main trail, but nonetheless, you had signs announcing that the trail was closed miles ahead, with no clear indication of how far up it was closed and for that matter, if you would be able to make it to the mountains, etc. The whole time, you were on the detour, but the detour would not, from what I could see, ever lead you where the closed trail would've taken you. City, you're confusing me -- but in no bad way. Every part of the trail that I wanted to ride on was open.

What was pretty cool is that a part of the trail that was closed last time I tried to take it was open this time. I was really glad. This portion of the trail has just enough incline to keep your bike going, but not so much that I get out of breath when I ride back up it. The main feature of this trail is lots of dips. The trail is right by a large arroyo (open cement drainage ditch that runs from the mountains, meant to catch melting snow from the mountains and waters from flash floods) and there are a whole lot of dips in this portion of the trail where open ducts are made to redirect water to the arroyo. (They're dry 99% of the time.) Most of them are really shallow and just give me a minor thrill on my bike. I am new to dips anyway. Then as I get further down the trail, the dips start getting bigger and bigger. I sort of remembered this, and as a matter of fact, when I was biking with a friend of mine, he had to stop and encourage me to ride my bike through the dip because it looked steep to me. He cheered me on, though he and I mutually felt like a toddler was being cheered for successfully placing one block on top of another. "Congratulations! You made it over the... uh...... gradual incline.... yeah." As a matter of fact, when I got to the first large dip today, I was thinking, "Well, that was hardly worth writing home about." I got to a second larger incline that my memory had failed me on, and I thought, "Well, I made it over that one. That was the one!" Then, finally I see what incline it was that scared me. Honestly, it looked like the Grand Canyon with a steep drop-off. Remembering last time, I just took the thing without any problem. I am going to use my bike as a mountain bike one day, just like it's meant to be. Really, I am.

About the biggest problem on the trail, really was this older lady who walked really slow and wasn't too steady. It wasn't so much that I needed her to be aware that I was passing her.... I just needed her to stay straight. She actually wandered closer to my bike as I was passing her. That wouldn't have been fun for either one of us.... She could barely walk, poor lady. Glad she was actually out walking, though.

My thought for today actually had to do with the plausibility of "living on my bike." I am sure some people do this. It's not really anything I have time for... but you know, you could just get your bike going, and just practically spend the rest of the day on your bike. It's really hard to put the exact feeling I am going for in words. I mean, it does require energy to bike, but it seems like if you achieve a groove, you could just keep going all day without problem. Am I making any sense?

A black woman with a very beautiful voice yelled, "Passing on your left." today. It was her voice I found remarkable.

Today's goal was 8km (5 miles). I went 11.19 km (almost 7 miles). My goal is to do this at least 3 more times this week.