I had to (Sob!!) give up my MB.

I'd be wrong to say that I'll never ride one agian, because never is a long time after all. But I do have to give up motorizing. I simply wasn't getting enough exercise and I was getting soft.

I built the MB that I've been riding in the spring of 2012. It actually was meant for my then teenage daughter. She actually rode my very first MB quite a bit during the summer of 2008, when she was fourteen years old. She had a paper route then and I leant her my very first china girl bike. She did well. So she's got some experience with these things.

Then, with this current bike in 2012, she rode to and from work for a good chunk of the summer. But she was having some trouble keeping the drive train and rear wheel bearings in good adjustment. She ended up losing her confidence. So I took over the bike, mostly with the intent of figuring out how to keep it in good adjustment and, hopefully, passing this knowledge onto her.

It took me awhile, for that matter, to get it all squared away. But I eventually figured it out and made it into a reliable machine. So reliable, in fact, that I was never riding my back-up bike and had gotten worried that it would be unreliable when the day came that I needed it. So I rode this MB from late 2012 right up until recently. A couple of times I asked my daughter if she wanted it back. But she'd turn it down. I have a feeling, based on watching her recently, that she was merely being considerate of me. I was having a good time with this bike and she, apparently, could see this.

I rode, some pedal bike and some motor bike, through the winter of 2012-2013. Then the winter of 2013-2014 hit. There was too much snow and ice for a motor bike. I could, and should, have ridden a pedal bike through most of it. But I was kinda out of the pedal bike habit. So I drove to work most of the winter. From mid-December to late February or so I only managed two or three bike rides. And I think those were all motorized.

My gut grew larger than it's ever been. And my arms and legs started getting spindly. I didn't think much of it. A winter like that is going to have that effect on people. I'd get back into shape quick. But it didn't seem to work out that way. The big gut stayed. And so did the match-stick arms and legs. Intolerable.

So a few weeks back I took my daughter aside and told her that she had no choice; she's taking over the motored bike and I'm going back to the pedal bike. She didn't seem too put out about it. There wasn't much adjustment needed. A shorter seat post and some adjustment of the levers and mirrors. And the next morning she rode the bike to work with a smile on her face. The next morning, too.

On morning number three she was attacked by two Pit Bull Terriers. I'm not kidding, either.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been. She kept her head and didn't allow herself to be dragged down. She merely hit the gas and shook them off. But one of them latched onto her right calf. Some skin breakage, but no deep wound. She now has an ugly bruise, though. The second dog bit right down on her foot. There's a perfect print of a dog's upper jaw 'embossed' onto her shoe now.

I think it's a work of art. A badge of honor. The scars of battle. The mark, to borrow a phrase, of an Intrepid Wheelwoman. I've been thinking of having that shoe bronzed. I'm proud of my little girl. But the reason for some of that pride is in the next paragraphs.

As it happens, we work close to each other. Two different companies and two different buildings. But they share a parking lot. It often happens that I see her as she's leaving. This is exactly what happened the day of the dog attack. So I asked her if she though this was likely to make her lose confidence in riding. She said she didn't think so. We spent a few more minutes showing off my tough daughter to a few of my co-workers. Then she went on her way home.

When I got home, at just about sundown, I saw her bike in the driveway half-disassembled. I went in and found her passed out on the sofa with black grease all over her hands. I woke her up and asked what was wrong with her bike. She said that nothing was really wrong. But she just thought it felt like the rear wheel bearings needed adjustment. So she set out to do this adjustment. But she had forgotten that she doesn't have a cone wrench (we'll soon fix that), so she had to wait for me to get home. It was just about dark by that time. So we raced out there and slapped it back together. Our schedules were such that the next morning I had to leave earlier than she did. During the day I had vague worries about just what I might have forgotten to fasten back down in our hurry. When I saw her that evening I asked how the bike had performed. She said that we had forgotten to re-adjust the rear rim brake. So she had gotten a slightly late start through fixing that. But she had gotten to work on time.

Since then she's come home a few times and gotten to work on the bike. Tightening things that had come loose during the day. Also making adjustments that weren't necessarily musts, but she just wanted something moved a bit. Things like that.



I think she'll do just fine.

And, now, here's my current ride. It's an old beater that's carried me many, many miles in the past. She's been in retirement for a year or so. But I've brought her back out and cleaned her up. It's been a good bike to me. It's a pleasure to be dealing with it again.

Well, now that you mention it, the addiction is strong.

For that matter I've already had vague thoughts about building another MB and then trying, trying, trying to only ride it, say, 1 day out of 5. With the rest being by pedal bike.

But for the time being, anyway, it's got to be strictly pedal.

No one has ever drowned in sweat?

Maybe. But I've come close.

I will be assimilated by the borg? It's way too late for that. It's already happened.

And while the 26cc friction drive is a good idea, Silverbear, I'm a happy time lover and I don't expect that to change. The compromise that I'll no doubt reach is to build another china girl and just make sure to pedal bike about 3 days out of 4. I've probably got that kind of will power. And I've got an unused engine and kit sitting in the attic plus spare bikes. Sooo.....

Still, there's an advantage to commuting by pedal bike for me. I get to climb through this. I wouldn't care to push a motored bike up this path.





Here's the layout. I live on a bluff overlooking a river. I've never found out exactly how high above river level I am. But it's a couple hundred feet anyway. I work at river level. So going home, of course, is my uphill climb. There's uphill and downhill in both directions, really. But on average going home is the more uphill.

There are three roads that'll get me up. The oldest one is the steepest. I know it was around before the automobile. Yet I can't imagine a horse pulling a cart or wagon up that. Maybe it was a footpath. There's a second road that's not as steep. But it's difficult, nonetheless. The third road is 'shallower'. It's not very hard to ride. But it's a workout, all the same. And it takes forever.

Or...I can just keep on going downstream at river level for a while and then strike this footpath that shows in these photos. It does five switchbacks up the bluff, through the woods. It gets me to the top perhaps a half mile from my home. It's pretty and it's ful. I don't have one car after another zooming by.

Near this path is something quite interesting. There's a set of concrete stairs going up the bluff in a straight line. They're ancient. Still climb-able, though they suffer from a severe lack of maintenance. I even pushed my bike up alongside while I climbed them once. But I don't think I'll do that very much. It was a lot of work. Way back when there was another village at the bottom of the bluff. Right on the river. At that point you could board a passenger boat that would take you either North to the county seat of the county across the river or South to our county seat. I suppose you could go further, though that might mean transferring to another boat. In any case, I'm sure those stairs were built for the use of people in my village. To get to and from the landing. That passenger boat has not operated in about a hundred years. The last I know of was 1911. Maybe it kept going after that. It probably did since it took a while longer for the auto to kill public trans like this. (Though public trans would be a misnomer in this case. That boat was privately owned.) Those stairs are likely to be a hundred years old. They could be older. Though I'd find that hard to believe. I'd expect more cracking and chipping than they've suffered. But maybe they were made out of super quality concrete. I suspect so anyway. While they're obviously very old, they're still in surprisingly good shape.

In any case, I feel pretty lucky to have a commute like this.

Yeah, I try to remember to count my blessings.

In ways, it even gets better. Down at river level my commute involves typical urban sprawl. One main hwy, 2 lanes each way, that's typical of many. Debris, broken shoulders, etc. However, there are alternatives.

If I 'snake' around a bit I can get my path on that particular road down to almost nothing. The longest stretch is about a hundred feet or so. And right at that point the pavement is quite good. Lanes are nice and wide. There's no shoulder but there's a gutter that's wide enough to qualify as a narrow bike lane. Between that and the wide car lane, there's enough room for cars to pass without anyone getting uptight. Everywhere else I'm either out of traffic or on residential streets.

So I have been blessed with a darned good path to and from work.

I noticed yesterday that my daughter took the car (!) to work.

I asked her if there was something wrong with the motored bike. She said that it didn't seem to want to start up.

No worries, though. I'll certainly have it running by the end of the month. I'll probably have it running tomorrow.

She's good, but she's a semi-newbie. It'll be something simple, no doubt.

Plus I've got a parts supply. Even if it's, say, the magneto I've got a spare.