I am continuing to ride into the fall, and I have hopes of riding pretty much whenever it’s not snowing or the road isn’t frozen.
The gear on my bike hasn’t changed a whole lot. I’ll need to get a rain cover for my rack trunk, I think, although that may end up being something elegant like a grocery bag. 😛 Plus last weekend I finally bought a mirror; I’m hoping to gain a little extra confidence on my very few left-hand turns in traffic. I’m still futzing with the placement, though.
Mainly I’ve been tweaking my clothing choices. I rediscovered a wool sweater last week: it was a dressy turtleneck that I’ve had for years, and almost every spring tossed it as too small. This last year, now that it fits, my office is just too warm to ever want to wear a wool turtleneck. But it’s way comfy for riding…in colder weather (we’ve dipped into the upper 30s in the morning a few times) over a “base layer” type shirt. It’s that time of year when stepping out it feels hella cold, but it can be quite warm once I get going. So I’m experimenting with various combos of exercise clothes, socks, gloves, etc.
As anticipated, the mornings have been a little lighter since the switch to Standard Time, and the nights are pitch dark. So much so as to be a little freaky, but it’s better since the parks maintenance people (?) came through and cleaned up the first big batch of leaves. Why that? Because now I can actually see where the trail edges are when all I have to see by is my headlight, or maybe some neighborhood porch lights.
I find it inspirational; I have a bunch of little poetry fragments, couplets mostly, that I’m hoping to pull together into something more expansive.
(BTW, my personal poetry writing month is going pretty well. I’ve only missed a day or two, and those were days that were just not going to be good for doing anything creative. I’m not editing or looking back at anything yet, just accumulating.)
I STILL have not gotten my special order rainpants from the bike shop. Ranting aside, if they aren’t in tomorrow, I give up on the local supplier & order online. That’ll be 2 weeks, and we’re looking at the rain coming back.
I may at some point get actual winter biking gloves, but for the time being I think the cheapo knit gloves will do fine.
And that’s it. After that it’s all about the actual biking, which is what I like.