Hey everyone, it's been SIX days since I made a post, any post, on Hive... It's been a busy week with some real life obligations I usually don't have and with less free time that means no posts, it doesn't work to make a post because I have to, I have to be in the right mood for this I guess... 😆

But at the time of writing this, it's a Sunday early morning 7:04 am and while the rest of the house is still asleep I have some alone time so I can think about what I want to write. Currently, it's -3 outside so the cold is back, that sucks but I guess it's better than rain?

We just can't have it all in the middle of winter, I saw my favorite cycling YouTuber Phil yesterday was unable to ride because of sheet ice on all roads not in the sun so he had to return home after a coffee... 😅
Speaking of coffee, great idea!

A riding partner!

While I was talking about the fact that I like to ride alone I actually have a riding partner now for once a week, my youngest daughter. She talked about wanting to go out with me before, but she's only 12 so it could very well be in three months she decides she doesn't like it after all and don't want to go out anymore so buying an expensive bike is a gamble...

So, we got online searching for a secondhand bike somewhere not too far from where we live and there was actually a bike being sold in the same city we live in, the seller however didn't provided a lot of info, he didn't knew what size the bike was and not even how old it was so I guess he didn't want to sell - not to me anyway... I want info! 😋

Then we found another bike, only 10km away and after some back and forth communication we planned for the next day to go and have a look, the seller agreed to lower the asking price from €375 to €250, this Merida is twelve years old and originally was €700 and looked to be in very good condition.

The seller was a lady in her 50's that always lived in the woods but now moved here and she only used her road bike now, it was a really friendly lady and she was all excited that a young girl wanted to get in to biking. After a test ride we decided to buy the bike, and because the lady stopped mountain biking she put everything she had for using the bike in the sale as well for free, a helmet, shimano glasses with different glasses, shimano clipless shoes and a mud guard so that was really sweet and my daughter was really excited!

The bike came with clipless SPD pedals, I tried to take them off but they were really, really stuck 😒 so I went to my van and got the impact driver but even then only one of the sides came loose and the other refused. It's a known problem when pedals are mounted without putting some grease on the threads and over tightening them, always put grease on any threads on a bike please! 😆 You will thank yourself later.

So we decided to leave the pedals on the bike but now my daughter didn't only have to learn how to control the bike but only learn how to click in and out.... and it didn't take long before she had a slow motion crash when she needed to stop at a junction 😅 oops!
Falling without speed isn't the worst thing and it didn't hurt so with a lesson learned she got on the bike and we did our very first ride together.

I didn't want to push her limits and just start easy so it was a 17 kilometer / 50 minute ride and yesterday we did another one just like it, 16 kilometer with a little more wind and a lot colder but she still likes riding so hopefully things stay like this.

With the help of YouTube I found a trick to get the pedals off the day after our first ride, and I now mounted the flat pedals my own MTB was delivered with so it's easier for her, the shimano shoes were one size too small as well so we will probably just sell them.

Racing a ship

I had never raced a ship before but on my last solo ride on Thursday I did, I made a route along the river before crossing it, the view is great here but this old camera doesn't take good quality pictures plus, most of my ride was really grey anyway.

At the point when taking this picture I was wondering if the sky was getting darker or maybe it was my glasses that turned darker but 5 minutes later it started to drizzle...
It's either one (cold) or the other (wet) this time of the year in my country on most days, rain isn't the worst as long as it's not a complete downpour to soak me, or rain with temperatures just above freezing - that's the worst combination probably. This time the rain only lasted for about twenty minutes and I was dry again when I returned home because of the riding wind.

At the end of the dyke, I entered the city of Vianen where I first crossed this little bridge. I needed to get to the other side of the city to get to the highway bridge that crosses the river.

Well this church definitely looked better in real life 😅

When I crossed the bridge (my biggest climb ever according to Strava, which is odd because I've crossed it once before lol) I passed this park, really nice to cycle in without a lot of people there, they probably didn't like the weather...

As most rides I build them somewhere between 50 and 55 kilometers, the average speed is consistently somewhere in the 24 km/h in my heart rate zone 2. When I got home I adjusted my heart rate a little to the upside, as long as I don't undergo a medical test (which I plan to do eventually) in which my heart rate zones are getting measured all I have now is my feeling. I can still easily talk and breathe up to 134 BPM, so I've set the zone 2 threshold from 130 to 135 before Garmin warns me it's too high.

Riding three times this week?

My Fitbit watch was telling me the entire week my recovery score was low (15) and I needed to take things easy, this was odd because I didn't do a big or tough ride so maybe a cold was trying to get to me? My other family members all were coughing and not feeling really well so this could very well be true, Thursday I decided to just not listen to Fitbit and ride anyway but stay in zone 2 instead of ride without a maximum, yesterday was the first day my recovery score was up again (68) and I went for a small ride with my daughter but since it's not even an hour with an average heart rate of 108, I couldn't see this as any kind of training than just some nice extra easy kilometers to add to my total.

So whether if I could ride today I promised myself, I would only ride if my recovery score was above 25 to not sabotage my body if it truly was fighting a cold.

Yay! 62, I'm allowed to ride! 😇

edit on Monday, the next day; So I went out on a shorter MTB Ride... some of you might remember my left crank completely fell off the bike, I cycled one legged for 8 kilometers to the local bike shop and they fixed it, ít should never happen again' he told me, but guess what!? 😣 About 500 meters after the start of the MTB Trail, my left crank was on the ground again! It was good no one was around me 😇 but after it happened the first time, I did some research about how the crank is fixed on to the bottom bracket, so THIS TIME it wasn't the end op my ride and with the multi tool in my bag it was fixed in ten minutes, from now on I'll just check the bolts once a month.

Sunday Cycling Prompt

Soooo... don't tell her but this weeks prompts are a little bit... weird 😋 they made me laugh, you would almost think someone who couldn't think clearly made them up. 😇

Give me one good reason—or several—that could convince someone who’s sleep‑deprived to go out cycling at six o’clock on a Sunday morning.

Well that's really simple, because it gives you energy! But I recommend to care well for your body but also for your mind and have a good sleep schedule, sleep is really important especially for cyclists - our muscles get repaired and strengthened in our deep sleep. As you all know I like to have things in order and so is my sleeping schedule, I go to sleep around 10pm until 5:30 - 6:30am, depending whether I have to work or not. On very special occasions I sometimes go to bed later but this doesn't even happen every month, I like my schedule! 😅

Have you ever fallen asleep on a bicycle, or do you know someone it’s happened to?

I don't think it's possible to fall asleep while being physically active. 🙂

Say you had to do a challenge to save someone’s life, and it meant cycling 300 km or more—where would you head off to, and why?

If I could choose where to go I would definitely head to the South-East, the provinces there have more trees and forests so it's not as dull to cycle in than only meadows. That being said 300km is A LOT, that's probably a two-day ride. Never say never but I don't think I will ever do such a long distance if it's not to save someone's life. This summer I do plan to do a 100km ride, just because I like the challenge. 🙂

Birds

For some reason when I see pretty birds now it makes me think of @nanixxx 😂 I am not a bird lover at all, I just enjoy nature but when I returned home yesterday I enjoyed nature, and especially birds - a little less! 😏

I did hear a little thud when I was riding but I figured it was a leaf or something like that, falling from a tree and hitting me on the way down, well it wasn't a leaf!

over 1300 words already so I'll just leave it at this and add the Sunday Chit Chat tomorrow when I'm home from work so, thanks for stopping by and keep pedaling!