The Old Mountain Bike - Redux

Well, I have to backtrack a bit on my previous post about being able to crawl up onto my old mountain bike and thus being able to ride it.  I took it out this past week and fidgeted around a bit with it.  Set the seat post to the appropriate height, and took it for another spin up and down my road (about a grand total of 500 feet).  Turns out the aforementioned thieves may have done a bit more damage - The bike wont shift into the third/highest chain wheel.  Perhaps this is a simple matter of adjusting the shift cable - I will have to drag out my old bike tools and book to see what can be done. But perhaps the front derailleur or shift mechanism has been damaged.  That aside, I ran into other troubles.  One being that I caught (but did not tear) my jeans in the gear.  So, on another ride, I wore my 3x size spandex pants - fabric entanglement with gear issue solved, but now a new issue.  When I attempt to stop and dismount, and this is embarrassing, but the crotch of my pants gets snagged by the shorter front end of the seat, and I practically fall over!  Other issues are that the pedals are viciously TOOTHED, for that superior grip on the wooded trails.  These pedals once had those straps that you slide your feet in and out of.  I called them suicide straps - even when I was in top riding condition.  I never could get the hang of them, and already starting to suffer from weak ankle issues at the tender age of 30, I removed them.  Now, these teeth grip into my sneakers in a most unsettling way.  My solution which has not yet been implemented is to wrap the suckers in duct tape.  But even with these fixes, I find it awfully difficult to just up and start pedalling, and wobble here and there.  Its a very unsafe feeling, and I have decided one truly CAN forget how to ride a bike.  Also on the dismount, there is something to be said for some level of flexibility.  I actually tend to be pretty flexible in the leg area, or so I thought.  This bike is starting to make me doubt my agility in that area.  Also, I find the mountain bike riding position, to be not quite as hunched over as a road bike, but not as upright as a cruiser, to be a real challenge when you have a big ol' belly impeding the free movement of upper legs.  Im most discouraged by this turn of events, as I was hoping to ride this bike to and from Planet Fitness, two miles from my home...   Im not sure I could make it without ending up taking a ride in an ambulance instead!  Sigh.....   oh, sigh, sigh, sigh....

I intend to still fiddle about with the bike, and see if I cant finagle some workable situation with it. I cant afford to go out and buy a better suited bike for my situation - heck - I cant afford a juicer, and Im doing good just to put gas in my vehicle.  In fact, it was the gas situation that had me drag out the old mountain bike in the first place, in a bid to bike to the gym, getting exercise and saving gas.  Yes, the total of 4 miles a day for getting to and from the gym does accumulate into a cost that is substantial for me....  As mentioned in previous posts, I find myself living in abject poverty - a most embarrassing situation.

I do like fiddling with things, getting my hands greasy.  I bet I could have been a good mechanic, based on my desire to disassemble mechanical parts and figure out how things work  (putting them back together, thats the real challenge...).  So I will probably drag out the mountain bike maintenance book, the lubricating sprays, the bike tools, and a roll of duct tape and see what I can do about getting that bike to a point where I don't feel that my life is in immediate danger, but rather just the potential of serious injury!

Meanwhile, I suppose I will have to swallow those gas costs to get to the gym, and settle for walking around the block, and who knows - perhaps walking to and from the gym as well.  Seems silly though, to walk two miles to the gym, to get on the treadmill to walk another mile, then walk home again!  I figure it this way - its really just GETTING to the gym that is the goal.  And once there, well - I should actually DO something there.  When I was in much better shape - my glory days in my 20s, I used to work out daily - I did circuits - trained one muscle group one day, and another the next.  However, at 250 lbs, Working the Cybex machines is just not comfortable - and I just cant bring myself to sit ALL over those little seats until I get to about 160 or so.  And I should be able to reach that point just fine with aerobic exercise for now....

And I also looked into how heavy is too heavy to be on a bike again.  On my first search, I seemed to find info that if you can waddle over and sit on  your bike, then you aren't too heavy - well, on further research, it turns out thats not exactly the case, and my initial suspicions have been confirmed.  You CAN be too heavy to be on a bicycle - that isnt properly constructed for the additional weight.  There are companies that actually make bicycles with heavy duty tires and frames, that will not catastrophically fail under weights of over 200 pounds or so!  It turns out having a mountain bike is a better compromise because they are built to withstand a beating.  Assuming you can handle their unique and less than comfortable form factors, given a prodigious frame of your own.  

Well, I haven't given up entirely on the old bike - but she has lost quite a bit of her golden gleam since my last writing about her.  If I feel unstable on the bike, I just can't ride it.  But I will see what I can do, since the option does not presently exist to purchase a bike more suitable to my current abilities and size...

But if I could buy that bike - I think Im going for a cruiser - something with fenders over the chain and gears (so jeans can be worn without fear of having them torn off in the gears), and with a more upright position.  A less fiddly bike, like the kind we all used to tool about on as kids. Easy riding, no muss, no fuss.  THATS for me! Give me  a PeeWee Herman bike any ol' day.  Leave the fiddly bikes for the weekend warriors who don't mind various flesh wounds and minor bone fractures!