Biking on two or more wheels

Nürnberg, 2014

Once again I am indebted to one of my favourite blogs,  Deans’ Stroke Musings, for this link to a Mountain trike for wheelchair users –

http://www.mountaintrike.com/

As I was pumping up the tyres on my lonely mountain bike this evening, with my new stand pump, I remembered that several days ago I had saved the link to share here on my blog.

There are links to several more means of transport for wheelchair users on Deans’ stroke Musings –

http://oc1dean.blogspot.de/2015/03/mountain-trike-all-terrain-wheelchair.html

Thank you once again for all the info on this site. I read it first thing in the morning, and it is always well worth the long read.

Joy in the natural world

'Peewit or plover'

'Hares galore'

'The april-showers that fortunately missed me!

On my bike!

It has taken me a long time to get my bike out of the cellar, but this year not due to fear –

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/03/fear_8580.html

It was the cold weather that put me off this year, and tiredness. I must be getting soft in my old age!

We still seemed to be in deep winter during the chilly days before I set off to England, with even some snow still fluttering down now and then. It was not at all the sort of weather to put me in the mood for a forty-minute ride to work.

As soon as I returned to Germany in mid-April I brought one neglected bike out of the darkness of the cellar and spruced it up for spring and prepared it for long journeys. Then I wrapped it up and waited for a bit of warmth in the air!

Watching the weather

Day-by-day I watched the thermometer before I decided what to wear. Early each morning I asked myself whether it would it be my nice clothes and a hop on the tram or my cycling gear and a hop on the bike?

It was not until Friday 27th, almost the end of April, that I took the plunge. The temperature rose from three degrees on Tuesday morning to twenty-three on Friday, so off I peddled. 

It was lovely to feel the air on my face and watch the countryside fly past. Even in the city, where I cycled down streets that I have not travelled since December, there were many changes to be seen.

I doubt that the temperature will stay in the mid-twenties for long but I think that the frosty mornings may now be behind us. This will probably be the last month in which I spend money on the expensive ticket for the public transport system, until I dig deep in my pocket again next December.

Watching nature

The trams and buses have been very busy over the past few weeks, some days on the return trip being full to bursting. It was therefore a real treat on Friday to be out in the fresh air communing with nature.

I love the extra time that I get to read when I travel on public transport, but I think that I enjoy even more the time spent communing with nature on my bike.

It is not only nature that excites me, I also enjoy all the action at the airport where I love to stop to watch the aircraft taking off and landing just above my head. I love to dream of being up there. I sometimes think about making a spontaneous decision to jump on a flight that would take me home for the day instead of to work!

I have not done it yet. Instead, as I did on Friday, I watch the herons fly to their fishing grounds, smell the spring in the hedgerows, hear the peewit or plover in the still short cornfield with the skylarks twittering above. At dusk I will stop in silence, as I did this week, in hope of catching the hares in action. Observing a spring boxing-match is a treat yet to come.

But does it change the brain?

Arriving at work with ten kilometres behind me by bike I do feel much wider awake than when I travel the distance by bus and tram. I wonder whether the clients would be able to tell. We shall have to put it to the test next week.

Cycling certainly does change my outlook on the day, my personality is transformed, and my soul is awakened when I commune with nature instead of with the inside of a tram or a bus.

PS

It took me the same length of time to cycle the distance as it did four months ago. The rest seems to have done me no harm at all and the bike seemed to manage it alright too.

Notes

More on the spring start to cycling – 

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/03/influence-of-weather-on-well-being-of.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2010/03/minus-four-still-no-sign-of-my-bike.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/04/story-of-red-and-yellow-tricycle.html

Back home to roost

'The old nest...'

'...and the new.'

The arrival of more than just warm weather!

Last weekend I dragged my lonely and neglected bicycle up from the cellar, pumped up the tyres and hung it up in the Hof behind the house. I was expecting to jump on it for the first time this year the following morning so that I could enjoy the ten kilometres to work in the fresh air instead of on a crowded tram and bus. 

I did not jump on the bike until Thursday because the temperature at seven in the morning was still not much above zero. 

Am I really turning into a fair-weather cyclist after all these years of riding come-wind and come-weather?

On Thursday the wind changed and with it came high temperatures, over twenty degrees higher than on Monday morning. So not only did I get on my bike (more about this later) but I also got out on the balcony. 

While I was out there tidying up the winter’s debris I heard a familiar cooing. 

Home to roost

When I returned from my visit to England a couple of weeks ago the first thing that I had done, when I walked in the door at nearly midnight, was to check whether my balcony guest had returned. The old nest was still empty and looking untended but there were tell-tale signs on the ground below that someone had been about.

It was not until two days ago when the warm weather enticed me to sit outside with my coffee, and later with my lunch, that I heard that soft cooing again. It was coming from just above my head. 

Last year’s guests certainly had returned and much earlier than in 2011. There, just two metres away, I spied that beady-eye looking at me again. This year I was being observed from a couple of branches higher, actually in the neighbouring tree.

I still have a perfect view of the nest

I can see the male or the female bird (it is impossible to tell the difference) sitting there eyeing me up, but at a distance that makes me able to use my balcony without disturbing Mr and Mrs Collared Dove. 

It really was a lovely experience last year observing that bird family at such close quarters, witnessing the arrival of the baby-bird, watching it fledge and seeing the rate at which it grew, but it is better all round that the family decided to move house. I am, however, very grateful to them for remaining within viewing distance. I know what is going on from past experience so just seeing that they are they is enough to give me a bit of company without my disturbing them when I tend my geraniums and strawberries.

Welcome home!

Notes

2011’s seven birdy-bulletins – 

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/06/squatters-rights.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/06/bird-report-number-two.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/06/in-new-zealand-2004-normal-0-21-false.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/06/company.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/06/5th-birdie-bulletin.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/07/birdy-bulletin-number-five-home-and_10.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/07/last-birdie-bulletin.html

The joy of cycling

I have just been offering some bike-buying advice to someone across the Atlantic.

I sent this link:

http://www.haverich-reha.de/pdf/Product_Catalog_2010.pdf

I thought that perhaps there are other people out there who would benefit from having this information too.

It is so important when choosing a bike, whether for someone with a disability or without, to get the measurements right and all the accessories too, it can make a huge difference to the joy one gets from cycling. I realised this when I purchased the bike in the picture above four years ago. Suddenly I did not get pain in my shoulders anymore! It was the difference of about half-an-inch between saddle and handbars that did the trick!

Summer Festivals

Busy weekends

Last weekend I was working. Well it was more a weekend of developing public relations than my usual sort of work.

There were two summer fetes to attend. The first was on the Saturday afternoon to raise money for a family who attend our conductive parent and child group, all organised by the local television company. The second fete, all day on the Sunday, was our annual summer celebration at work.

The television company had arranged for an actress, Kati Karrenbauer, who became famous when she starred in a series that was broadcast from 1997-2007, to attend the first fete. This actress, also a musician, now works mostly in theatre and also performs one-man shows as she did on Saturday evening when she read stories from her autobiography. I was there as the sole-representative from the conductive department and, fortunately for me, I was not called upon for an interview. It would, of course, have been better for the development of conductive work in the area if I had been called upon to speak.

At the summer fete at work I was also on public relations having done my preparations for the exhibition and sale of works of art from all my groups the night before.

It was a pleasure to have so many colleagues from different departments, approach me to ask me about my work.

A week has followed that was just as busy as the weekend thus a lack of blogging.

I have however been communicating with a family in Canada with a child with spina bifida and a family in America who are buying the first tricycle for their child with cerebral palsy.

First trips on bikes are one of my favourite times at work. The smiles, the speed and the freedom are all a joy to observe.

We have had two new bikes in the groups this week, a first bike and a second one. Even the arrival of a second bike is an exciting event especially if there are new baskets, tools, a helmet and other accessories arriving at the same time.

Fear

"1959 on my first bike that I loved. It was blue and red. With Big- Sis of course"

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

I have been afraid to get on my bike. I put it away in the cellar in November 2010 and although I brought it out again two or three weeks ago I had still not ridden it. It remained locked up in the courtyard beneath my balcony.

What was I afraid of?

It was very cold still and I was full of aches and pains, so was I afraid of catching a chill? No, I do not think so. I have been healthy all winter while the children at work, and the staff, have been dropping like flies.

I have been extremely tired for months. A medical problem that has been sorted now was the fault of the tiredness so perhaps I was afraid that I may not concentrate and this would cause me to fall off. But I do not think that this fear would be enough to stop me riding my lovely bike.

I think that Franklin D. Roosevelt was right

Although I really have been afraid to jump on to my bike again this spring, with four long months being the longest that I have ever had for my winter break, it was this fear that I was afraid of most.

I do not really know why I was afraid to start cycling again but I had this strange feeling of not wanting to. I was so unsure of whether my body would have the energy to cope with the cold and the twenty kilometres-a-day round-trip but mostly I was full of fear.

I am unused to these feelings because I love my bike and I love to ride it. I love meeting the rabbits and the moles, the dragonflies and the horses – not to mention the fellow-cyclists who I know well enough to wave to. I love to notice how many traffic lights out of the ten that I ride through are on green and how many minutes that saves me on my journey.

I really like not having to wait for trams and I love breathing the fresh air instead of sitting in a hot steamy bus.

Despite loving all of this, and with part of me longing to be cycling again, I had a sense of foreboding. I just did not wish to ride and the actual fact that I had this fear was worrying me. I wondered too how long it would last but decided that it was all right for me to keep buying a monthly bus-pass until the moment came that my fear left me. I was determined not to feel guilty as well as afraid!

I notice sometimes the same thing happening with our clients, children and adults alike. They learn something and they enjoy doing it for a long time but suddenly not any more. I have usually thought that their will and the motivation have vanished - but why? Had it not been like this for me too with my bike? Perhaps our clients too are afraid for some reason and then become as I did afraid of being afraid.

Conquering fear – by action

I still do not know what I was really afraid of but I do know that the more I became afraid the more I worried about having this fear. Until that is on Monday morning, when I got up, got dressed in all the gear that I found in its usual place ready and waiting for me, and I hopped on the bike.

My motivation returned and I was off like a rocket!

All but two of the ten traffic lights were on green, which gave me a flying start to my cycling season.

It was good cycling weather and got better for the return trip when the sun with some warmth in it, even though it was late evening, accompanied me to my door.

I have no idea what re-motivated me at last to cycle to work again at last but now that I have broken that barrier of fear there is no stopping me, although this evening after a twelve-hour day both Évi and I hopped on the bus for a short part of the journey home, she with her roller blades and me with the bike. It was not through fear or laziness that we hopped on the passing bus, we were just exhausted.

Tomorrow I will be out there again with the rabbits and the moles, the planes and the pheasants, and much more besides, all of which I have described here before:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/08/i-follow-yellow-brick-road.html

Having just re-read this posting that I wrote eighteen months ago I cannot believe that my bike stayed in the dark cellar for so many months. There is enough in that story to motivate me to keep on pedalling, at least until the next snow starts falling.

Notes

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” -

Franklin D. Roosevelt 1932, in his first Inaugural Address.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/