judifilksign

Today, my darling husband got the seat off, and the trailer on, and the seat back on for Sparkle and I to ride together again!

I asked Sparkle as I got ready to go whether she wanted to join me. She asked if the bike was fixed, and I told her it was. She got her helmet, and we got on, my DH making adjustments before we went.

My. Did I say that my bike was harder to pedal than the yellow bike yesterday? Well, my bike, with trailer, with Sparkle on the trailer is even heavier. (I would say "more of a drag," but that seems to imply I found it spiritually draining, not just greater inertia, which would be inaccurate.) I needed to stand up to pedal even slight slopes to maintain my momentum in order not to fall over.

In addition, especially at first, we were quite wobbly. I had to maintain a tight grip on the handlebars to maintain control. Sparkle soon regained her balance, and the ride became smoother the further we went.

The neighbor's horses ran away from the fence as we tandem two biked past. The Alsatians at the corner were blase, which was good, because they were also outside of their fence.

Sleepy cat in the road remained sleepy, and a bit further, a black cat crossed our path. I found myself in a mental loop wondering if this forsaged disaster.

On the bike trail itself, some maintenance crews have been through with a shredding machine that tore branches into splinters on the farm side of the road. I didn't like seeing the trees cut up that way. There were a lot of dead leaves on the trail, I think from the shredding, although some leaves did fall in the breeze as we pedaled along.

All the cyclists we passed greeted us pleasantly, with extra big grins for my happy trailer. Sparkle said hello to everyone we met. She asked to go across the Windy Bridge. Well, it was windy tonight, and I was glad, because I was working hard and the breeze felt good.

We crossed the first road, and I stood and pedaled for the upslope before the downhill to the bridge. We passed where the pond had been, and Sparkle expressed surprise that the pond was all gone. Going over the bridge, she wondered where all the water went. She wanted to stop and smell the white trumpet flowers, so on the way back, she did. We had a conversation about how she could not pick park flowers, which frustrated her.

As we traveled, my bike seat worked a bit loose, and wiggled back and forth to the left and right. I need to make certain that my darling husband tightens it up, because that was annoying.

We passed a woman walking her dogs, a reddish golden retriever and what looked like a tall welsh corgi. The owner shortened their leashes as we approached, but the dogs were perfectly behaved as we whizzed by. "Nice puppies!" called Sparkle as we passed.

Downhill toward home went quickly, as this is where Sparkle puts her full concentration into pedaling. I was able to gear up to 17, and we had some good speed going on, which in turn stabilized us. Sparkle puts a constant drift to the left on our ride, so I am always having to lean or steer right to compensate. Going faster, this tendency is lessened. I don't know why. Sparkle kept reciting, "Stay on the right; that's the rules!"

We had to wait for three cars to cross the rail road tracks before the last hill. To my shock, we did so by balancing with the brakes on without touching the ground with our feet! To be sure, Sparkle's tandem was at a slight angle to my bike, providing stability, but I was still quite impressed with ourselves.

The other neighbor's dogs went totally ape when they saw us, but the driveway neighbor dogs were blase.

All in all, Sparkle and I had a lovely ride again, and I am so happy, and have that good, tired feeling that you get when you pleasantly exert yourself.