Oct 14, 2014

Back in the Saddle. Sore.



Warren had lent me some entertainment when I was at the nadir of my powers, and with one thing and another - broken bones and broken phones - I had been unable to return it to him.

With another seemingly endless expanse of Epic Tuesday Time ahead of me, I resolved to return said entertainment. When I found his number (broken phone) I found that he we would be at work, which happens to be in a cycle shop of some repute, and so I further resolved to overcome the final psychological hurdle in my rapid and yet not rapid enough recovery by visiting him at his workplace, and purchasing from him a brand spanking not-shattered helmet of the biking variety, with which I would protect my head whilst getting back on the Conveyance of Catastrophe, the Bone Shaker, indeed the Bone Breaker, that Pushbike of Pain and Perdition.

I got a very schmick Minbari-style number, white with a red stripe running from front to back, and after a trip to the playground and a return to the bike shop to retrieve the milk bottle little Lyra had left there, we returned home to face our fears.

I was a little concerned, I must admit, that Lyra would throw some sort of epi-cadenza at the thought of returning to the gunner's nest but after having some fun with the bike pump and getting the tyres up to pressure she was as keen as mustard, and, strapped in with her helmet on, we activated the hangar door and were off.

Maybe the smile disappeared from her face; I wasn't game to look behind me just yet but she seemed happy enough as we gently at first made off down the road, then down the hill to the bike track by the brook, then out past Stafford City and through Grinstead Park.

Time was ticking on by now so I thought a trip to the playground might be in order, to reward her after our little trip. A Pavlovian Playground you might say.

We got off my bike and my eyebrows were raised a bit (I still can't do just the one) when we saw that young Claire was there with little Georgia, with a picnic mat and everything. It's their local I suppose, but it was a pleasant surprise nevertheless. Lyra played with Georgia and I made off-colour semi-humourous comments about helmets and such like.

On the way back we did have a bit of a wobble when the bike left the path for a while; I don't recall why, maybe my short-term memory-writing algorithms were disrupted by my being temporarily scared absolutely shitless. A gentle application of the brakes and some swearing got us back on track. As pedalled homewards (the Royal we), I replayed our accident over in my mind as a sphincter-conditioning exercise. It's the bit where I hit the ground with my shoulder that really makes the muscles down there work hard.

Afterwards, I reckon we'd probably done a cool 10km. No wonder my muscles ached; I'd forgotten how many groups of muscles cycling, especially uphill or fast, requires.

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