Wed, 19 Jun 2024 14:52:34 GMT

🚴🏽‍♂️ Today, I take my Felt FR-4 to the bike shop for a new wheel set, brakes, and tune-up.

In the Fall of 2020, I lost 2 spokes hitting a pothole coming down a pretty steep road hill off of Bauneg Beg “mountain” near where we live. It was the last ride of the season so I didn't start the repairs/replacements then because “I had time”, and there was always the Peloton trainer and walks/hikes for exercise.

For some reason, I allowed the events of, and sad response (by my fellow citizens) to, January 6, 2021 “get to me” in a pretty bad way (lots of you saw that on socmed). That (for lack of a better word rn) “malaise” let me give myself permission to ignore the Felt. But, thankfully, my spouse rly wanted to try to get back into cycling, and we got e-bikes (she has some pretty severe cardio issues and needs the asssit) and did a bunch of short rides together until the winter weather was inclement. I continued to use it (I do market & CSA trips with it — all short-ish rides — and don't mind the cold).

I _slowly_ worked through said “malaise” and was really looking fwd to Spring 2022 to get back on the Felt when the whole fam got hit with COVID b/c schools (everything/one, rly) stopped caring about COVID. Then long-COVID set-in, but — thankfully — I managed to continue to get some road-time in with the e-bikes, relying pretty heavily on the “e-” part.

If you haven't had long-COVID, or not been around folks who have, I cannot really describe what it can do to you both mentally and physically. There were times when walking down a flat hallway at home could just — without warning – exhaust me. At least with the e-bike, I had some semblance of confidence I could “turbo assist” pedal the way back home. But, the thought of fixing the Felt and going on an unassisted ride was literally paralyzingly terrifying.

Continued encouragement from a Pelo-friend (hey boss!) kept me going on the trainer on really “sad” rides (compared to what I was able to do prior to long-COVID), interspersed with some outdoor walks during the week. And, I mean “walk”, not “jog”, or “power walk”.

A full year past contracting COVID and “living” with long-COVID I *finally* started to feel “better”, physically. It just so happened that was right before work started up the couple-times-a-year fitness challenge we do to encourage each other to “move”, and one of my spiffy team members also got us plugged into a Concept2 global rowing challenge. Those two things helped me get back into training condition, and my Pelo-friend socially engineered me into a weekend century/half-century (I did ½ century) challenge on the trainer. I could not believe I was able to do it, but I was still pretty terrified of getting the Felt fixed and back on the unassisted road bike. Gotta say, long-COVID sure does a number on one's mental health.

Last week, in Acadia, my spouse and I took e-bikes (at appropriate speeds) on the carriage roads of the park. I did a long-ish solo ride, as well as some market trips with it. I'm not quite sure “why” (perhaps b/c I was able to blow past — just on “Eco” assist — some “fit” folks on e-bikes up the giant hill at the start of the carriage roads at Hulls Cove?), but between those rides, and a literal run around the Jordan Pond trail, the mental “terrified” mental block is now gone. Hence, the trip to the bike shop today.

I cannot believe it's been this long since I'll have done one of the things I enjoy most (long, unassisted road bike rides), and I'm kind of kicking myself for not “being tougher”, but I also know it doesn't work that way.

If you made it this far, and are now asking “why did I spam my socmed feed with this tome?”, I can answer that it is out of hope that it encourages just one other person just enough to kickstart them out of any “malaise” they've also let set in. If that's you, allow me to assert that you are most certainly not alone, weird, or weak. You're human, and I can def assure you that “you got this”.

Now, I just hope the global supply chain has rebounded sufficiently to not draw out repair time too long. 🚴🏽‍♂️

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