Tag Archives: bicycling

Was It Trippy? A Bike Trip on a Polluted Day

Not a day goes by when I don’t complain about Climate Change:  the heat waves, the drought, the floods, and the wildfires.  Scientists have warned us since the mid-20th century, but the Earth Day festivities once a year make no difference, and Americans’ addiction to cars drives a large percentage of air pollution.

Wildfire smoke over New York City

And now the smoke from spreading Canadian wildfires has rapidly blown from evacuated Thunder Bay to northern Minnesota, Milwaukee, Detroit, and even Manhattan. I can’t take in the photographs of smoky cities and wonder how people will cope. Heat, wind, and dust: a horrible combination.

The air here is still moderate, according to the meteorologists, so I planned to take a bike ride today. I decided to get up at 8 and take my ride before the temperature rose to 90

My alarm went off at 8. Well, I did not leave at 8. But I promise I’ll leave at 8 next time. (Did I hear you say, “Uh-huh”?

The Six-Stop Bicycle Ride

First Stop:  I ditched my  600-page hardcover book at a Little Free Library because my bike was  wobbling from the weight.  What a rookie mistake!  A paperback is required for this situation. 

Second Stop.  I was already hydrated, but had brought two water bottles just in case,  Five miles into the ride, I drank half of a huge pink bottle which I bought because it was pink. It is not ideal for the road, because it weighs down the bike .

Third Stop:  I dumped out the small bottle of water, because I needed to travel lighter..

Fourth Stop:  All that water… what could I expect?  Should I stop at the restroom at the convenience store, or the patisserie with the clean restroom? The convenience store restroom has two stalls, the patisserie only one restroom with no stalls, so, yes, I stopped at the convenience store.

Fifth Stop:  Bought an iced tea at the patisserie. A big crowd inside but nobody came out to  the veranda.  Since I didn’t have my book, or anything to do, I considered walking my bike the rest of the way.   Oh no, I had already gone too far. What were a few hills?  Very burdensome, actually.

Sixth Stop:  One more drink of water…. it was hot on that last lap in the sun – and then home!

So was that a trippy trip?  No smoky yellow haze, thank God, so it doesn’t quite fit the sceniario of John Brunner’s The Sheep Look up, but in other ways we’re living in a dystopian novel.

Walking, Running, Bicycling, & Camping:  What to Do in the Summer

You won’t believe this – how could you, after all? – but Captain Nemo and I once bicycled from Conneautville, PA, to Geneseo, New York, and back. 

I trained for the ride for months. Well, perhaps one month. We were young, and we were fit;  we were both runners. He ran marathons, I ran 10Ks.  I ran a half marathon once, and promptly threw up.  My favorite race was The Don’t Fall Run.  No one seemed to know about the race, and hardly anyone signed up. We got lost, because there were no signs, so we all chased the leader, who was lost, too.  If our times were slow, it’s because we ran much farther than intended.  A half marathon?  No, not that far, because I didn’t throw up.

Anyway, I wish I still had the Don’t Fall Run T-shirt. 

Bicycling is much easier than running. We didn’t buy special gear for our bike trip. We wore gym shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers.  And, since of course there were no vans to carry our gear, we stowed it in panniers or tied it to the rack on the back of the bikes.

Before we left, I took my old Schwinn 10-speed in for a tune-up.  The shop employee said the Schwinn wouldn’t make it and tried to sell me a Japanese bike.

“No, thank you!!” I  had no trouble with the Schwinn.  (N.B. The company is no longer based in the U.S., and the quality of Schwinns has gone down, I hear.) We traveled up the green hills of Pennsylvania (miles and miles uphill, and where was the downhill?), then up more hills in New York (the worst was from Jamestown, NY, to a campground at at the top of a hill peak: I was assured it wasn’t a mountain peak.)

After all those miles, I lost – one pound!  Pathetic.  Biking isn’t for weight loss.

WALKING IS CHALLENGING, TOO,

 It is my goal to take long, long walks with Captain Nemo. We love the  challenge of a four-mile trail around a beautiful lake in a park in the midwest. The gorgeous, hilly woods are shady and cool, the rhythm of walking calms us, and we had glimpses of the blue lake as we walked.  I felt like a character in Conrad Richter’s The Trees,  or perhaps Louise Dickinson Rich’s We Took to the Woods.

There were few walkers.  Most people were fishing. And most of them were overweight: no body shaming, thank goodness!  There were people fishing in kayaks, people fishing on the shore, and a very thin cool guy fishing in a boat with a hushed electric motor.

Motorboats are banned in the park, says Captain Nemo, but some of the electric motors make almost no noise.  This man seemed to have no oars.  He turned the boat with what looked like a TV remote.

The hilarious thing is that no one caught any fish.  The cool guy caught no fish, the fishermen and fisherwomen on the shore caught no fish, and the Kayakers had no room for fish.

“Where’s the fish?”  we kept asking.

I was doing fairly well on the walk until we reached the campground about two miles from the beginning. 

 The campground was a giant parking lot.  No trees, just hot sun and concrete.  One couple huddled under an inadequate RV awning, but everyone else was indoors. 

It was dismal.

I should be used to RVs by now, but it’s such a waste of gas.  Why go camping if you’re not outdoors?  Do you have to replicate all the comforts of home?  If you need the amenities, most parks have restrooms and there are often showers.: And if the mosquitos are terrible, you crawl into the tent at 7 and read a book by flashlight.   It’s just sad to go camping in an RV. 

And yet some camping trips are more fun than others  Once, in northern Wisconsin, a storm knocked over our tent, and I had to lie down and splay my arms and legs to the corners to make sure the tent didn’t blow away. After we put the tent back up, we sat in the lodge till the rain was over.

The walking trails at this park were beautiful, in the deep woods, but it is very buggy in the summer.  The best time to camp in northern Wisconsin is in the spring or fall.

We had a mellow camping experience near Thunder Bay, Canada. We camped next to a pebbled beach (well, perhaps they were rocks; it was in the ’90s so I don’t recall exactly), and there were birds everywhere, and placards about the birds.  It was silent except for the birds  It was the most silent place I’ve ever been.

On some camping trips in state parks  noise has almost defeated us. The people in the next tent at one park were drinking and playing loud, bad music all night. We politely asked if they would turn the music down so we could sleep.  They said Yes, but of course they did not. We had to lie there sleepless all night.

 The next day, I sat bleary-eyed by the lake reading the latest Oprah Club selection, and by the time I finished it, I was ready to hike again.

The State of “Coronavirus Etiquette”

 

I was organized.  

Water bottle, Gatorade, mints, wipes, sanitizer, mask, Keats, notebook, pen,  Band-Aids, Neosporin, Tylenol, stethoscope (just kidding)…

Part ardent bicyclist, part Cherry Ames, I was ready for a bike trip.  And on the way, I would pick up a few things at the store.

 Before the state reopened (though too early, in my view), shopping was a trial.  The thing is, we realized early on that curbside service is not for bicyclists.  Store employees were flummoxed because they are instructed to stow the item in a car trunk.  We don’t do curbside pickup at the library, either, because the policy discriminates against pedestrians and bicyclists.  YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN A CAR AT ALL TIMES. 

Although I don’t shop much, I am grateful that some stores now have online shopping and store pickup. Your means of transportation doesn’t matter to anyone then.   I am picky about where I shop:  honestly, the corporate stores have the best social distancing strategies, because they have more money and more space than small businesses. There are six-foot markings on the floor where you stand in line,  the now-usual plexiglass cubes on the counter to protect cashiers and customers, and a large open area  beside the lines so that people are not squeezing into your space.  

At stores you cannot help but observe the state of “coronavirus etiquette,” just as some people find themselves watching birds during the pandemic.   In our midwestern “nice” state, most people wear masks and try to observe social distance. Of course there are always a few merry rebels:  a laughing maskless father and daughter broke the tense silence and emitted invisible gobs of spit. (HERE’S THE THORNFIELD HALL DAILY HEALTH QUIZ:  On a scale of 1 to 5, would you say the pandemic has driven you (a) insanely OCD, (b) very OCD, (c) moderately OCD, (d)  slightly OCD, or (e) free of OCD but with a tendency to laugh like the Joker.

The problem at the store wasn’t social distancing: the real problem was that there were not enough cashiers   An old woman behind me was very indignant about the long wait.  “How are we supposed to get help around here?” she called loudly.  But there was no one to answer.

I would have offered her something calming from what I  call my First Responder Bag–perhaps a mint or Gatorade–but these are not the times for sharing.