Biking the Strand

I've got to tell you, (you being the millions of eyeballs that read this blog surreptitiously), it took me a while getting used to calling a bicycle a bike. Where I come from, a bike is a machine with the impressive cubic displacement of (often) 100 cc and above, while a cycle is something that the masses creak away in. Out here in the US, a cycle is a motorcycle, and a bike is a bicycle. Crazy I know.

So, 3 weeks into the new bike, what do I have to show for my efforts apart from a butt that keeps chafing? The cyclocomputer tells me that I have so far ridden my bike 123.4 km with a Max speed of 39.5 km/h and an average speed of...no idea. I foolishly saved a few dollars and hence my cyclo can do every other computation but this. I could but it's a pain keeping time.

My first long ride here was to Santa Monica along the Strand- a two lane strip that runs parallel to the beach cities in south LA for about 50 miles or so. I managed about 70km on that first trip and all but huffed and puffed my way back home. Work and weekends away from home kept me away from extended trips for a while, till I finally decided it was about time to hit the saddle. So I just completed a 30 km trip to Manhattan Beach...I feel great, my fitness seems to have improved, and if I keep at it I should get to an average of about 28 km/h. I think i did about 23 km/h this time around.