Sunday Early Edition

Boy I make this difficult.
Riding a bicycle I mean.
All the fussing and a tweaking and a adjusting and a changing.
Why bother?
Why not just get out and ride?
Sorry, just not in my nature.
Sort of wish it was though.
I mean when I'm out and about and see folks just riding around on any kind of bicycle, I get sort of jealous.
Seriously, it's not about the bicycle, at least not for them.
Okay, I suppose for some of them folks riding a bicycle is a necessity, not recreation, so anything with two wheels and some pedals will suffice.
Then there are the ones just starting out, they haven't really got the bug yet, so they just what ride what they got.
You also got your commuter types, not too many of them here, mainly for geographic reasons.
The commuters here are in the hardcore category, the ones live and breath bicycling.
Recreational bicyclist is the label I'd put on myself.
I like to ride, mainly to get out of the house and to help maintain my health, something my body can no longer do by itself.
I enjoy getting out on my bicycle but I also realize that I'm not like the others.
When something on my bicycle goes goofy, I can't just take it in to the LBS and say "fix it please."
No, I gotta look at it, find out what the hell is wrong with it, fix it, then make it so that whatever went goofy doesn't go goofy again.
This applies not only to my bicycle, but to me while I'm on my bicycle.
Trust me, I don't really enjoy a changing this and that, constantly poking at things and loosening and tightening bolts.
The problem is that the outcome is not always a good thing, and you end up wasting your precious time.
Sometimes though, you do something that drastically changes the way you ride, or the way you enjoy your bicycle, and that I suppose is the reward for all the work.
It doesn't happen often, let me tell you.
Most of the time, it's little superficial things, small detail things that in the long run, when you step back, you realize it did make a difference after all.
Or sometimes, it makes no difference whatsoever.
Or sometimes, you actually go backwards and it ends up being a bad thing.
Perhaps it all adds up in the end.
The end being the time when you no longer have to think about the machine under you, you no longer worry about this or that, and you achieve cycling zen and become one with the bicycle.
Is that my goal?
I dunno.
It sounds like a plan though, doesn't it?
Then maybe I can be like some of those other folks, just out on a ride, enjoying the day and the nice weather.
Not really caring about what's under them, just exhilarating in the fact that they are self propelled.
In fact, I'm going to go out and try to be one of them today!
Today I'm going to ride my bicycle just for the joy of riding!
Oh yeah baby!
Okay, not really.
I still have to adjust my seat.
You, the reader, should have seen that coming.