RecumBum

While my wife and I were visiting her sister and family in San Diego, I was fortunate enough to accompany my wife’s sister and her husband on a short bike ride through the city.

From their home near Balboa Park, we took Park Avenue west and downtown. Frankly, I’m not sure exactly where we went, because they led me on a twisting route on city streets, so most of my attention was devoted to following their lead and watching out for traffic and pedestrians. However, I know we passed by the convention center as well as Petco Park, which was pretty cool.

I was riding a borrowed mountain bike with a slowly-leaking front tire and mis-adjusted front derailleur. This was a first for me, as I’ve never ridden a mountain bike before, and this one had front suspension, with made for a fairly cushy ride (or perhaps that was just the mushy front tire).

I hadn’t ridden at all for nine days, and hadn’t ridden an upright for quite a while, but I didn’t have any trouble riding it, and felt good and strong throughout the short ride – a total of about 7 or 8 miles, by my reckoning. My wrists didn’t hurt too bad (though a bit), and my rear end wasn’t complaining too much, either. I think the seat on this bike was a bit larger and softer than the seat on my 10-speed which gave me so much trouble in March.

There was one amusing glitch: as we climbed the first steep hill, I did my normal spinning, and made it up with no problem. Only after reaching the top did I realize that I was riding an upright, and could have stood up to make the climb easier. I remembered this later on a smaller climb, and also remembered to lift up off the sear when going over bumps. It’s amazing the simple things you can forget after not using them for awhile.

For the first part of the ride, I missed my eyeglass mirror. I kept glancing up expecting to see it, and felt crippled without it. Eventually I re-learned how to look back over my shoulder, and by then it was dark so the mirror wouldn’t have done me much good anyway, I expect.

This was also my first time riding in an urban area, and that was quite an experience. It was a little stressful, but was overall a interesting experience. Traffic was fairly light overall, though heavier in a few spots. We rode on a mixture of streets and sidewalks. Riding on sidewalks with pedestrians around felt strange, as that’s something I never do at home and in fact it’s illegal in many places. I’m not sure of the laws in San Diego, but the practice is certainly common.

My hosts were a little more blase about traffic laws than I was comfortable with. The attitude seems to be that is there was an opening, go for it. I played along sometimes; other times I followed the rules (such as stopping at red lights), and they had to wait for me to catch up after the green.

I don’t think that my SWB recumbent would have been the best bike for this environment. The frequent starting and stopping, curb hopping, and weaving through cars and pedestrians, would have been difficult, and in some cases dangerous. With its exposed chainring on the front, the SWB would pose a significant danger to pedestrians, and could really do some damage both to people and property. An upright bike, with rubber tires fore and aft, is a safer alternative for the type of riding we were doing.

By the time we made it back to the house, it was well after dark. The bikes were equipped with very small LED headlights, which really didn’t do much to light the road. I expect they were more for being seen than for seeing. In general, the streetlights were adequate for seeing where we were going.

Overall, I’d hoped to ride more during my trip, and could have borrowed the bike to do so, but in the end I decided to skip it, and spend more time with my wife, rather than spending time alone on the bike. It would have been fun to explore and get lost, but spending time with my wife was more important.

But at least I got a small opportunity to get out on a bike, and it was a fun little ride.