Sunday, April 20, 2014

The Start

Hi, I'm John.

I bought a bike about 5 years ago, rode it around the block a couple of times and then left it in the garage.

When I grew up in Dunedin most kids didn't have bikes because it is quite hilly, although I did learn to ride on friends' bikes.

All in all, I've probably spent less than 20 hours riding.

But now I've decided to give it a serious go, and there are several reasons.

This year I reached the same age as my father was when he died. Intellectually I know that people are different, and the fact that he smoked (while I stopped 15 years ago) makes a big difference, but still it feels a bit ominous.

After always being a skinny kid, I've steadily put on weight (especially since I stopped smoking), and nothing I've tried seems to help. At various times, I've cut out carbs, meat, and even alcohol (worst 24 hours of my life). At the moment I'm floating around 92kg, which is too high.

Mr Money Mustache says everyone should own (and use) a bike in this brilliant post.

We had a bike week at work that seemed like a lot of fun - here is an article about it.

So:-

I went to the local bike shop and they came around and sorted out my bike so I can use it to ride to work, which is my immediate objective. Work is only 2 1/2 km away so that should be achievable. Also, I looked up on Google Map's excellent bike route finder and discovered a way to go that avoids some very busy roads, using a track that I didn't even know existed.

2 comments:

  1. Nice work way to take up biking, that's awesome! :)
    Another way to hopefully shed some pounds is avoid as much sugar as possible, hard to do but worth it!

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  2. Allez, allez, John!

    ReplyDelete