Tuesday, August 12, 2014

A new bike, a new rider, and a reminder of how precious life and health are



I’ve been a bit remiss at posting anything on the blog recently. That’s because August has been one heck of a month so far. My birthday was in the first week, and I had decided to get myself a new commuter bike. So I spent a few days searching out and trying cyclocross bikes. In the end, I changed course and bought a commuter bike. It's a lovely Norco Indie Drop Alfine. Yes, the one with the electronic shifting. It’s in the shop getting (at least partially) kitted out for me. (Partially because the new carbon fork won’t be in before I need it for a camping vacation, and so that’ll have to wait until we get back.) I got a really good deal on it, but not so great service from the shop I bought it from. So I'm getting all the work done at Bikes for All, a shop we love.

But the real kicker this month was that 3 days before my birthday I found out that my Mom had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. It’s not cancer, but it’s still pretty scary. The whole diagnoses and treatment planning thing was a bit of a screw up on the part of doctors, but I don’t want to go into that as it seems to be settled now. I may be mid-40s, but my mom is young given my age. And I have a young son who loves his Gramma. She has 4 other young grandchildren too, who all need their grandparent. Thankfully, it looks like we all get to keep her with us for a while longer.

It made me think about what life would be like if she were gone and I’m not ready. So it’s been a bit of a whirlwind of emotions. It made me want to stop training. It made me want to hide in my house. But it also reminded me why I started tri training, to be healthy and present and alive for my young son, so I got back out on the trails and roads again. Which was good, since my little guy learned to ride his pedal bike over this time. He has been using a run bike for a while now, but decided (I think in part due to a little guy we met camping a few weeks back) that he was ready for the pedal bike. It took him 1 try to be able to ride with a slight downhill. Then 2 or 3 rides later he was zipping around on the flats, head down over the handle bars looking for bumps to fly over and obstacles to swerve around. He loves his bike and want to go ride every evening. It's so much fun to watch him bomb around, the joy on his face can be seen for miles. The first day he was able to ride on the flat we were at a local school parking lot (no flat near our home) some people were out in their yard across the street, enjoying a beer in the warm summer evening. They witness a kid who couldn't ride suddenly become one who could, and who was beaming with pride. They cheered for him as we left to go home. He was a little bit embarrassed by that, but he also loved it. And now can even conquer some hills with his new lighter bike. Yes, he got a new bike last week too, which was actually the third bike we purchased last week. (My husband got himself a new one too. We are all set for a while now. Well, unless I decide to get a cyclocross bike after all. They’re fun to ride!) Kids bike are so heavy; most of them are made of steel. But we found him a nice specialized 16” at the Bike Gallery. We lucked out and got a used one, so we saved a little bit of money. (In fact, all three bikes were very much on sale, so although it was an expensive week, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.)

And I got in a bit of training too. Which is good, given that I had a triathlon to do on Sunday. But that will get its own post.

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