Saturday, August 9, 2014 . . . The Update (1 Week Later)

The "Ugly" that I mentioned in an earlier post certainly didn't wait very long to put in an appearance!  After the test run, I was all set with a new helmet, pedals and renewed enthusiasm.   My first offical run was a success.  I'm tracking my rides with a "Map My Walk" app, which works great, by the way.  Below is the first ride.  It was a little strange being on something so small after riding a 2005 Harley Fatboy, but overall, was a great experience.  

It was only a twelve minute trip, but it was gratifying to see I had ridden nearly 2 miles!   So, I struck out again the next day and halfway through the ride, I noticed something was seriously wrong with the right pedal.  It seemed a little "off," but it was working okay, or so I thought.  

During the first part of my ride, what seemed "off," was the pedal slowly boring a nice smooth hole in the pedal arm.  

 

So, now there is nothing to hold the pedal and will unfortunately require professional intervention.  

The upside of this is that I did get my exercise for the day!  I rode half the trip and walked the other.  

Refusing to give up this early in the game, I have decided to alter my approach and put the bike riding on hold for now for one main reason:  an issue of safety.  Even though I'm riding in a park, the road serves as a main artery to get folks from the west side of Dearborn  and on to the freeway without several stoplights, so there is a significant amount of cars racing along 40 - 50 MPH.    Without riding on the narrow walking trail, which always has pedestrians, I have to ride on the shoulder of the road (which many people do all the time).  I'm not quite as confident of a rider with that much traffic,  so, I'm moving forward with plan B.  Walking.  I've had huge success with walking in the past.  Here are a few photos from those times (proving to myself that, yes, I CAN do this and I WILL see positive results!)

Walking.  That's the next step (and the next blog entry).