Bicycling in Bloomington

Well, sorta.

I haven’t posted for almost three weeks. During the past three weeks, I’ve commuted every day except one and that day, I had to go between an appointment way off-campus and a campus meeting in about 15 minutes. Not possible on a bike.

The weather has been fine for biking. The long winter delayed spring, so we had a compact spring. Almost all spring flowers, shrubs, and trees bloomed in the past three weeks. This happens every few years in Bloomington and it’s generally spectacular when it does. It almost makes up for the long winter.

However, I have not been able to ride much besides commuting. Last week, I rode about 30 minutes in the local neighborhoods one morning. Another morning, I rode the Jackson Creek off-road trail for about 30 minutes. “Rode” might not be correct because I had to step down and / or get off regularly. I have no idea how anyone can ride that trail. I would certainly like to see it done.

I was in South Bend the past two weekends. The first weekend, I got in a long run. Last Saturday, I did a mountain bike ride in Rum Village near South Bend. Overall, it was fun and I felt good after it. However, my skills were terrible. I stopped far more than usual. But, I had only three mountain bike rides last year, so some problems were expected.

I rode with my son-in-law who is a much better rider. To put our skills in perspective, going down one hill, he said he was shifting to the big ring to get up the other side. I was braking while he was in the big ring.  

The past two days I had interesting rides around town to run errands, etc., that are more relevant to biking conditions in Bloomington. I’ll report on them next.