backing and forth

The title of this post comes from an email I received from one of my students, a sweet older man from South Korea. He was telling me about his wife's mother, who had been very sick, then got better unexpectedly, then got sick again -- in his words, backing and forth all the time. My sympathy was sincere: in the two and a half years before she died, my mom also did plenty of backing and forth, so I know how hard that is on everyone involved.

Yesterday I did some backing and forth myself.

I began by riding Beatrice to the bike shop, intending to have the clipless pedals removed and replaced with regular pedals. I expected the replacement pedals to cost about $10-15. Was I in for a surprise! To get anything of decent quality, I'd have to spend at least $50 and to get the ones that last forever, I could spend more than $100. Upon hearing this, I told the guy that I would rather buy dual-purpose (clipless/platform) pedals for my road bike and put the pedals currently on my road bike on Beatrice. (I didn't call her Beatrice in front of him.) I also wanted a back rack mounted on Beatrice, so I left her there and walked back home (3 km) to get Milly, my road bike.

I rode Milly to the bike shop, discussed a few things, including the new brake pads and the front brakes, with the guy (he was quite impressed with my installation of the new rear brake pads) -- and made arrangements: they would take the pedals off Milly and put them on Beatrice and outfit Milly with the dual-purpose pedals, which were only $47.00. They would also adjust Milly's saddle, raising it a tad and leveling it. I was pretty happy with this and upon being told that it would take about half an hour, I went for a walk on the nearby trails, stopping in at the library to renew my library card.

When I went back to the bike shop, both of my bikes were ready. I rode Milly home, testing out the clipless pedals -- they are great -- and then walked back again to pick up Beatrice. At this point, I remembered the cadence magnet I had requested, so I asked about that. They had one that actually straps onto the crank, a much better arrangement than my old magnet, so I was happy with that, too. The guy even strapped it on for me and checked to make sure it worked.

I then rode Beatrice home, for a total of more than 20 km of backing and forth.

It was a hot day: 29 degrees and humid. My original plan was to go for an afternoon bike ride after I'd finished with all the adjustments, but after all the backing and forth I was so hot that I copped out.

Another walk in the evening, just after sunset, with Hubby and Maggie, brought my grand total for the day to 26.5 km. A relaxing day, but a lot accomplished. More than just backing and forth.