Cycle Sunday

I tested out my new bike yesterday with a group bike ride. This required a big effort - it was the first real exercise since my teeth came out. The new bike is the cheapest geared bike that Dr M could find - so it is functional, but nowhere near as comfortable as my bike at home (which has mountain bike tires, front shocks and comfort handle grips) - particularly over the cobblestone streets! I did go looking for some cycle gloves over the weekend, but as every shop was shut for midsommar, I was out of luck. (It is weird to have a city shut down completely for 3 days - DJs & Myer can barely cope with being shut for one day at Christmas!)

We rode out of the city and (like the locals) enjoyed the beautiful day with a picnic. I have no idea where we were, but we were on a lawn area between a manor house (built in 1775) and the water.

We ate our picnic on the grass, had a relax, then headed into the manor house for a hot chocolate (wrong weather for it, but it went well with the cake).

The house was beautiful and one of the staff brought us a photo album which showed the house as it used to be - not much had changed!




The ride home was a real struggle! I ran out of puff, my legs gave up and my hands cramped up. All up we did about 33km, so it was a reasonable ride after such a long period of inactivity/convalescence! No bike riding today - I'm going to rest and buy some cycling gloves to make tomorrow's ride more comfortable.