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We're in a bke boom

late

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Southern Maine
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The last one was in the early 70s. It started in Europe, anything with wheels was flying out the door. Now it's happening here.

I am a cyclist. Bikes today are amazing. I have an electric bike with a 1/3 hp engine. It's not much, but at 69, it helps my old bod get up those hills.

Every summer I can get out on the bike, my weight drops, my BP drops, my blood sugar drops, and my Doc smiles.

When you're on a bike, you interact with your world differently. A lot of places you'd just drive by, you'll stop, just because. Actually, I arrange bike rides to we can take a break at a bakery or a coffee shop. We'll stop, and split a coffee and a goodie. We might go to the European Bakery manana. Coffee is nothing special, but they make very nice goodies. The other thing about cycling, you can have your cake and work it off. That's what I call a win/win.

I know it can be quite intimidating, expensive bikes, scary traffic, aches and pains where you haven't had them in quite a while. But it's given me my life back. I can't put a price tag on that.

 
We are way more spread out geographically than European countries, that being said, we have a ways to go to get anywhere near the percentage of cyclists that I have seen in European countries; Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, etc.

Good for you$!
 
Bikes are flying off the shelves in the UK as well and there's now a parts shortage.
I've been on furlough from work for a while as live with people who have severe issues and I've been out on long walks (we have some lovely fields with walking/cycling routes) and using an exercise bike daily. I go walking with my dad who's retired and we've seen loads of families out and about on biking trips and it's all rather lovely to see.

I highly recommend just getting out walking or biking as a form of exercise.
 
I have two Cannondales - the one I have in Los Angeles is a mountain bike, but I don't ride it as much as I should - I use my elliptical machine instead. In Palm Springs, my bike is more of a street bike, but it still has 27 gears. At this stage in my life, it is uncomfortable to ride hunched over the front of the bikes. I only ride in the winter in Palm Springs, as it is too hot in the summer, but in Los Angeles, I ride year round. I used to live in Venice, close to the Venice and Marina Del Rey bike paths, but I got annoyed with those, due to overcrowding, shortly before I moved to Westchester, which is a much quieter neighborhood. I'm now three miles from the beach and rarely go there anymore.
 

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I just wanted a cruiser. I didn't know yet that it was called a cruiser but turns out that's what it was. I was given the impression that I wouldn't be able to get one because of pandemic buying.

Yet though the shelves were nearly bare wherever I went, at the Walmart this one bike was waiting for me. Very happy. Foot brake was a little tricky to relearn to use -- a trip to the urgent care clinic happened and I still have a big brown mark from the bone bruise -- but very happy.


Dt1WoOc.jpg
 
I just wanted a cruiser. I didn't know yet that it was called a cruiser but turns out that's what it was. I was given the impression that I wouldn't be able to get one because of pandemic buying.

Yet though the shelves were nearly bare wherever I went, at the Walmart this one bike was waiting for me. Very happy. Foot brake was a little tricky to relearn to use -- a trip to the urgent care clinic happened and I still have a big brown mark from the bone bruise -- but very happy.


Dt1WoOc.jpg
Man, does that ever look retro! That bikecould have been in the rack at my elementary school!
 
We are on pitstop right now after 12 miles riding. I did 2000 miles last year.
 
The last one was in the early 70s. It started in Europe, anything with wheels was flying out the door. Now it's happening here.

I am a cyclist. Bikes today are amazing. I have an electric bike with a 1/3 hp engine. It's not much, but at 69, it helps my old bod get up those hills.

Every summer I can get out on the bike, my weight drops, my BP drops, my blood sugar drops, and my Doc smiles.

When you're on a bike, you interact with your world differently. A lot of places you'd just drive by, you'll stop, just because. Actually, I arrange bike rides to we can take a break at a bakery or a coffee shop. We'll stop, and split a coffee and a goodie. We might go to the European Bakery manana. Coffee is nothing special, but they make very nice goodies. The other thing about cycling, you can have your cake and work it off. That's what I call a win/win.

I know it can be quite intimidating, expensive bikes, scary traffic, aches and pains where you haven't had them in quite a while. But it's given me my life back. I can't put a price tag on that.



My only issue is the seat.
I simply cannot deal with standard bike seats because pedaling causes intense pain on the pelvic bone that rests atop the saddle.
I once saw a bizarre type of seat constructed from a set of ten speed handlebars that had a cloth hung on it that cushions the buttocks instead.
I tried to "roll my own" but my design was so poor that it wound up as a failure.
My flaw, not the fault of the design.

If I could find a seat that uses the buttocks instead of a "saddle" that uses the bony part of the pelvis I'd be riding a bit more, at least as much as my poor old knees would allow anyway.
 
A road bike with a huge crank and T-handlebar. I like doing 20 mph at a jog.
 
I have two Cannondales - the one I have in Los Angeles is a mountain bike, but I don't ride it as much as I should - I use my elliptical machine instead. In Palm Springs, my bike is more of a street bike, but it still has 27 gears. At this stage in my life, it is uncomfortable to ride hunched over the front of the bikes. I only ride in the winter in Palm Springs, as it is too hot in the summer, but in Los Angeles, I ride year round. I used to live in Venice, close to the Venice and Marina Del Rey bike paths, but I got annoyed with those, due to overcrowding, shortly before I moved to Westchester, which is a much quieter neighborhood. I'm now three miles from the beach and rarely go there anymore.

I miss the Venice of old, not that I could even dream of being able to afford living there anymore.
The last two places I had were an edit studio in the basement of The Morrison at Speedway and Westminster and an old bungalow at the corner of Rialto and Abbott Kinney. Studio rent was $160 a month and the Abbott Kinney place was $750 a month rent to own.
An evil roommate screwed us all out of the Abbot Kinney place, pocketing the money when he should have been paying it to the landlord, ahhh the mistakes of youth, and the Morrison changed ownership and my studio rental was an informal agreement with the former manager.

The Abbot Kinney home converted to a business and the house sold for FOUR MILLION (!!!) and the rent on that basement in The Morrison would be almost $2500 a month today. I pay that much for a 4BR 2500 SF home in Whittier.

But I sure do miss biking along Ocean Front Walk, not for exercise, but just for fun!
 
I miss the Venice of old, not that I could even dream of being able to afford living there anymore.
The last two places I had were an edit studio in the basement of The Morrison at Speedway and Westminster and an old bungalow at the corner of Rialto and Abbott Kinney. Studio rent was $160 a month and the Abbott Kinney place was $750 a month rent to own.
An evil roommate screwed us all out of the Abbot Kinney place, pocketing the money when he should have been paying it to the landlord, ahhh the mistakes of youth, and the Morrison changed ownership and my studio rental was an informal agreement with the former manager.

The Abbot Kinney home converted to a business and the house sold for FOUR MILLION (!!!) and the rent on that basement in The Morrison would be almost $2500 a month today. I pay that much for a 4BR 2500 SF home in Whittier.

But I sure do miss biking along Ocean Front Walk, not for exercise, but just for fun!

My father still has an old newspaper advertisement from the 1970s of a small run-down bungalow on Malibu Beach selling for $15,000.00. He always jokes that since he still has the advert, he thinks about calling the number and taking the owner up on the offer.
 
My father still has an old newspaper advertisement from the 1970s of a small run-down bungalow on Malibu Beach selling for $15,000.00. He always jokes that since he still has the advert, he thinks about calling the number and taking the owner up on the offer.

I had the opportunity to purchase one of those run-down old Malibu bungalows back in the mid-1980's!
It was opposite the beach side of PCH and nestled up against the cliffs.
Two regular bedrooms and a baby bedroom, 1 bathroom, sitting room, kitchenette and a "semi-enclosed" workshop area only accessible by going out of the house and around. Something tells me that workshop area was a non-code compliant DIY add-on.
It was about 1100 square feet and selling for only 75 thousand if my memory serves me right.

Most of the homes built into those cliffs along that stretch of Pacific Coast Highway got destroyed over the years by either fires, rock-falls or flooding, but this one apparently has magical drainage and whatever other protections because it remains standing to this day, and is estimated by Zillow at 2.76 million today.

Of course the property taxes are through the roof.
 
I never wanted to live in Malibu - I like Pacific Palisades much better, as it is more convenient. My doctor's office is there. However, I am fine with living in Westchester at this point, especially since I spend about half of my time in Palm Springs. I even like the desert in the summer, and I don't have to heat the pool half of the year. Since we have solar panels, our electric bill is never high. The worst bill is in the winter for heating the pool, and so I limit my winter time in Palm Springs.
 
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