CWS: Cycling Withdrawal Syndrome
Aside from a quite nice China Camp MTB ride a few weeks ago, I haven't been on a bike in nearly a month. Cold turkey, just stopped. Wait, I just checked the calendar and it's actually only been a couple of weeks. But it feels like a month, at least...so there.
Lots of things got in the way and conspired to leech my riding time and energy...
Firstly, I just haven't felt much like riding. We had a couple of great warm weekends followed by a cold spell, and I just didn't feel like having to bundle up after riding in short sleeves for a change. I also haven't been feeling well, and that was probably just the excuse I used to avoid riding. Or something.
After more than a year of looking, the wife and I finally found a groovy condo in the Mission that we're gonna buy. We might be able to start moving in as soon as the end of this month...which means I've got to figure out what bike junk I can keep and where it'll all live at the new place. I'm losing the awesome dedicated bike-workshop room I currently have at my rented flat, but the new place has a (shared) garage and 3 bedrooms, one of which will become my new office/studio/bike-room, so I should be OK for work space. I have to figure out an attractive way to store 4 bikes in that room so that they're mostly out of the way. Of course the bedrooms are all wall-to-wall carpeting; time & money permitting, I want to rip out the carpet in my new office and replace it with some snap-together tiles so I don't have to worry about the occasional drip or tire dirt. At any rate, dealing with the condo purchase has sucked up a couple of weekends of real-estate open-house visits, property inspections, lots of document reading and signing, and other not-so-fun stuff. Staring massive amounts of debt in the face is a stress-inducing experience!
I took a Saturday off from riding and worked on a couple of bikes: My Bontrager got some new-to-me XTR cranks, and the Cannondale is all set to sell, after getting some new tires and a different saddle (I want to hang onto the one it wore before).
Work has also been crazy lately, requiring me to bring my laptop home in the evenings and stay up late working. I haven't yet sorted out how to carry the laptop on my bike so I haven't been bike commuting either. Even without the laptop, the late nights are killing my up-at-5:45am schedule which precludes my taking Caltrain to work.
My mother also recently suffered a stroke, and this past weekend we headed back east to visit her and get in some family time. That was a tough one...not as bad as I feared, but still tough to deal with. Fortunately her rehab center let us take her home for a day so we had a good time cooking supper and having a meal around the table like a normal family. Mom's dealing with a lot of challenges right now, but she certainly eats OK and that's great!
The interesting thing about all this downtime has been that, at first, I went through some sort of bizarre withdrawal as (I guess) my body readjusted to less exercise. I guess I was (and hopefully still am) addicted to cycling! I avoided riding because I was tired and stressed -- and not riding only made me more tired and more stressed, downright irritable and cranky actually! Things got better after the first week, and now I just feel like a complete slug. I'm starting to get the itch to ride again, especially now that the weather's warmer.
I'm going to have to start packing in earnest soon, and I also really need to sell off a good pile of excess bike stuff which will require a massive and painful sorting /photographing/listing effort, but hopefully I'll have time to get back to my regular riding schedule...
Lots of things got in the way and conspired to leech my riding time and energy...
Firstly, I just haven't felt much like riding. We had a couple of great warm weekends followed by a cold spell, and I just didn't feel like having to bundle up after riding in short sleeves for a change. I also haven't been feeling well, and that was probably just the excuse I used to avoid riding. Or something.
After more than a year of looking, the wife and I finally found a groovy condo in the Mission that we're gonna buy. We might be able to start moving in as soon as the end of this month...which means I've got to figure out what bike junk I can keep and where it'll all live at the new place. I'm losing the awesome dedicated bike-workshop room I currently have at my rented flat, but the new place has a (shared) garage and 3 bedrooms, one of which will become my new office/studio/bike-room, so I should be OK for work space. I have to figure out an attractive way to store 4 bikes in that room so that they're mostly out of the way. Of course the bedrooms are all wall-to-wall carpeting; time & money permitting, I want to rip out the carpet in my new office and replace it with some snap-together tiles so I don't have to worry about the occasional drip or tire dirt. At any rate, dealing with the condo purchase has sucked up a couple of weekends of real-estate open-house visits, property inspections, lots of document reading and signing, and other not-so-fun stuff. Staring massive amounts of debt in the face is a stress-inducing experience!
I took a Saturday off from riding and worked on a couple of bikes: My Bontrager got some new-to-me XTR cranks, and the Cannondale is all set to sell, after getting some new tires and a different saddle (I want to hang onto the one it wore before).
Work has also been crazy lately, requiring me to bring my laptop home in the evenings and stay up late working. I haven't yet sorted out how to carry the laptop on my bike so I haven't been bike commuting either. Even without the laptop, the late nights are killing my up-at-5:45am schedule which precludes my taking Caltrain to work.
My mother also recently suffered a stroke, and this past weekend we headed back east to visit her and get in some family time. That was a tough one...not as bad as I feared, but still tough to deal with. Fortunately her rehab center let us take her home for a day so we had a good time cooking supper and having a meal around the table like a normal family. Mom's dealing with a lot of challenges right now, but she certainly eats OK and that's great!
The interesting thing about all this downtime has been that, at first, I went through some sort of bizarre withdrawal as (I guess) my body readjusted to less exercise. I guess I was (and hopefully still am) addicted to cycling! I avoided riding because I was tired and stressed -- and not riding only made me more tired and more stressed, downright irritable and cranky actually! Things got better after the first week, and now I just feel like a complete slug. I'm starting to get the itch to ride again, especially now that the weather's warmer.
I'm going to have to start packing in earnest soon, and I also really need to sell off a good pile of excess bike stuff which will require a massive and painful sorting /photographing/listing effort, but hopefully I'll have time to get back to my regular riding schedule...
posted by jim g at 3:57 PM
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