Slice of Chaotic Life

Biking seems like a good idea. It is not purely natural, like walking, running, climbing and swimming; but thanks to the ancient invention of gears, you can adjust the load to your muscles instead of the other way around, at least to some degree. And thanks to more recent inventions, you can now have indoors exercise bikes that take relatively little room and provide a way to work your leg muscles and your heart and lungs.

It did seem like a good idea, which was why I bought one shortly after I moved to Nodeland, two houses ago. It has followed me to this day, but I still don’t use it much. This is because even though I like biking, my legs hate it, and they make their opinion known quite clearly.

While I can walk fast for an hour or two before getting tired, I can only bike with a similar pulse for less than half an hour, even shorter if I don’t hop off now and then and stretch my legs.  It has been like this since a month or so after I got the bike (it was even worse when it was new, since I had not biked for years and years).

One of the cool things about exercise is that the more you do it, the better you get. Or so it is with every other form of exercise I have tried or heard of. But not biking! There is no progress at all. The next day it is just as bad if not worse. The next week it is just as bad. And the week after that my knees start hurting so bad I have to stop biking so I can continue to go to work.  By the time the knee pain has fully disappeared, so has any tiny progress I might have made in the week or two before the pain started. Back to the starting line!

Now for a couple weeks, the roads have been so slippery that walking is a slow and cautious adventure, undertaken only for urgent needs like yogurt and dark chocolate.  I have tried to at least use the exercise bike as much as my body lets me get away with, so as to keep the old blood pump running. (I am still single and celibate, so the more attractive indoors exercise is not an option.) Thus my sudden mention of biking and why it doesn’t behave the way I want it to.