— पांच हजार आठ सौ एक —
I communited to work by bike yesterday, my first bike commute of the year, and the latest in the year I've gotten back on the bike since before covid. And you know what? My legs are fucking killing me.
I tried to look up blog posts from my first bike commutes in 2024, 2023 and 2022 (April 11, March 27 and March 29, respectively), but could only find commentary on the day itself, which means I wrote about it after riding
to work, but before my first bike ride
home from work—which is the far hardest part, being uphill (a cumulative
410 ft climb up hills, the equivalent of a roughly 35-story building, but all on inclines, most of them steep). I checked the next-day posts as well, but in none of them did I say anything about how hard it was to ride home for the first time of the year.
Because I can't remember it ever being this fucking hard. In two different spots yesterday, I couldn't take it and had to get off the bike and
walk it up hills. It was exhausting and fucking depressing. Am I just getting old?
My first ride home is always exhausting. It takes a week or two to really get used to it again. But I don't remember it being
this hard before. I need to make a note to self for future years, and even take Shobhit's advice: I should ease into it more, by taking a route that is less direct but on average a bit flatter.
Honestly, I could just take the flatter route as a matter of course. As a rule, though, I like to get a steeper stint over more quickly than to ride up a lower incline for a far longer distance; this way I get a good percentage of the climb over quickly. This is why I usually ride down Elliott Ave to Broad St—as I did yesterday—and then take a left on Broad and ride three blocks up to 2nd Avenue, where there is a protected bike line into the heart of downtown. The thing is, the three blocks on Broad from Elliott to 2nd Avenue alone is
a 102-foot climb, the first two blocks alone being
an 85-foot climb. In just those two blocks, a full fifth of the cumulative 410-ft climb getting all the way home, which now that I think about it is a little bit nuts; the three blocks combined amount to a quarter of the elevation climb.
Huh. Why am I doing that to myself? Well, when I'm back in shape every year: to get the hardest part over quickly. It usually works for me! But, yesterday, I made it up the first block okay, but as the light was green when I made it to Western Ave, I had no time to stop and rest, and although I tried to keep going that second block, I made it maybe a third of the way before I got off the bike and pushed it walking, barely able to breathe.
I had already been 10 minutes late getting out of the office, because I was just rinsing my tea tumbler out in the kitchen when I got into a 10-minute conversation about the Deli Smoked Mozzarella Pasta and how we both much preferred when the smoked mozzarella was cubed. Apparently both of us have had multiple conversations with people in Deli about it over the years since this was changed (probably like 7 or 8 years ago now) and we both thought we were the only ones so passionate about it. Gabby did tell me Whole Foods
carries a version in which the cheese is still cubed rather than shredded as PCC now does it; I haven't tried it but I fully intend to one of these days.
It took me a bit longer than the usual 25 minutes after that to get home, because of course, I had to get off my bike and walk a couple of times. The first was on that stretch of Broad Street; the second was on Pine, the very last block before getting to 15th where my condo building is located—also a very steep block. I got nearly halfway up that block, gave up and got off the bike, then walked it across the street to come in the front door rather than through the garage on 15th as normal.
But, I needed to figure out a way to get my front tire properly pumped; it was not quite adequate. This tire has a type of pump nozzle I am not used to, and it's easy to press it in a way that it just deflates the tire by accident. I did this twice before I finally stood the bike upside-down and managed to get it pumped properly.
It was 5:23 by the time I was walking to the door through the garage, the bike actually locked up finally, and at that very moment Shobhit called me, wondering why I wasn't home yet. He remembered that it typically takes me half an hour to ride, rather than the roughly one hour it takes to walk, so he clearly expected me to be home by 5:00. But of course, I didn't even get out of the office until 4:40, so it would have been 5:10 before I got home even if it weren't my first bike commute home. I saw moments later that he had even texted me two minutes before that:
Are you okay? Bike giving you trouble? Nope, just being a fucking old geezer, who has to ease more carefully into strenuous exercise than when I was younger, is giving me trouble!
What a pain in the ass! And my legs. I rode to work again today, and my legs are aching even as I write this. I got a charley horse in the back of my right calf just swinging my body out of bed this morning. It was very weird because I could feel a literal bump bulging out of my calf muscle, until I sort of rubbed it back in; at least it didn't last long. But, I'm sure it was a result of the physical strain from yesterday.
I did do a slightly different route to work this morning than I did yesterday, though, as I did not need to swing by the library this time. I might have to give up on riding to work along the waterfront though. The zigzagging I have to down around Pike Place is annoying, and I don't care for riding over the old stone street through Post Alley. This results in a 20-minute ride, the alternative that still gets me along the waterfront being a circle via 12th Ave down to Yesler and then back over to the waterfront, which is a 24-minute ride. And if I just take the standard route that does
not invovle the waterfront, simply turning right up 4th Avenue from Pine and then riding down Broad, that's typically a 17-minute rite. I love the waterfront but I'm not sure it's worth all that. Some days I'll still need to catch the bus, and I can just go back to walking to the waterfront via the Overlook Walk then.
— पांच हजार आठ सौ एक —
— पांच हजार आठ सौ एक —
Otherwise, it was a quiet evening at home. Shobhit and I watched the season finale of season 7 of
Black Mirror on Netflix: the episode "USS Callister: Into Infinity." It was really fun, even though it was a direct sequel to the season 4 premiere "USS Callister," which was released December 2017 and I really couldn't remember it at all. The "previously" intro helped a little bit. The feature film-length episode (88 minutes) was still really fun though.
After that, Shobhit connected via Zoom to this month's 43rd District Democrats monthly meeting. Ry is running for Mayor and was going to speak. I was more struck by a few of the speakers who were candidates for City Council. Some were better than others, at what I guess I'll call "politicianing."
Each speaker had enough time to take about two questions from constituents on the call (although Shobhit joked that there were more candidates on the call than voters). One of them noted that Seattle is a "C40 City" collaborating around the world to combat climate change. I didn't even know what that was, and had to
look it up. At first I thought it made Seattle sound incredibly impressive, if it was one of only 40 cities in the world in this coalition—but, there are actually
98 of them. Granted, only 17 of those are in North America, and Seattle is one of 14 American cities, so that still feels kind of impressive.
So what the hell does the 40 refer to, then? I totally assumed it was the city count, but clearly not. Maybe it's a reference to climate? Oh, wait—it actually
did refer to 40 cities at first, when the number was expanded to 40
in 2006. This was after it was first formed as the "C20" in 2005.
Well, okay then. Clearly they should be calling it the C100 now. What is wrong with these people?
— पांच हजार आठ सौ एक —
[posted 11:56pm]
