Day: December 18, 2021

Getting It In Gear

Fandango28 Comments

I just returned from my first ebike ride. I admit that I felt a little shaky riding a bike — any kind of bike — for the first time in years. I will definitely need to get in some more riding practice time before I’m ready to share the road with cars on heavily trafficked roads. So for now, my neighborhood streets and a few local bike trails will have to suffice.

That said, it was a lot of fun. My bike has eight gears (speeds), five levels of pedal assist on the Pedal Assist System, and a throttle to keep the bike moving without peddling. I primarily used the higher gears and kept the bike at PAS level 3 most of the time. At one point on a straight stretch of level road in our neighborhood, I hit around 25 MPH without breaking a sweat. I was also able to ride up the rather steep hill leading to our house using pedal assist with relative ease, something I couldn’t manage to do on my regular, non-electric bike.

It was fun, but riding an ebike is definitely gonna take some getting used to. My wife didn’t go with me because she’s feeling a bit under the weather. Hopefully, once she’s feeling up to it, she’ll join me cruisin’ on our ebikes.

By the way, in case you were wondering, that’s not me on the bike in the photo above, but the guy is riding a bike just like mine. Photo credit: Jim Wilson/The New York Times.

SoCS — Opposites

Fandango14 Comments

When Linda G. Hill asked us to use the word “opposites” or write about things that are opposites for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, I immediately thought about when we brought home two dogs who were litter mates years ago in the late Eighties.

These were both Labrador retriever puppies, about eight weeks old, when we brought them home. They weren’t pure bred Labs, but seemed to be mostly Lab. Little did we know how opposite to one another they would turn out to be.

One, the female, was a chocolate Lab. The male was a yellow Lab. He was sweet, affectionate, and mellow. She was high strung, ditsy, and nervous. He was a homebody who rarely seemed to want to leave the house or wander away from the yard. She was an escape artist and a runner. Any time anyone would open a door she would try to run out of the house and would literally run until she dropped.

He was motivated by food and treats and would respond whenever we shook the biscuit box. She seemed to be relatively uninterested in treats. He always wanted to be around us, close to us, and would either snuggle next to us when my wife and I were on the couch watching TV or would drape his 80 pound body across the two of us. She rarely sat near us and more often than not, would pace back and forth or go lie down in the corner when we watched TV.

Our dogs lived to the ripe old ages (for large breed dogs) of 14 (the male) and 15 (the female). They were opposites, but we loved them both and still miss them terribly.

FOWC with Fandango — Bite

Fandango16 Comments
FOWC

Welcome to December 18, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “bite.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.