After some mandatory down time this winter and early spring, the doc says it’s time for more exercise; specially cardio. Sooo…, it’s out with the ride for another year. Got the bike all tuned up earlier this month, and I’m slowly getting back to it.

Last year I was riding my bike at least 30km/week. I have a couple of routes over to Green Timbers Park, around the park and back that each give me about 10km. I was doing the ride 3 times a week for the better part of the late summer and early fall, and I felt great.

Occasionally, I’d ferry the bike down to Mud Bay and ride 10-15 km along the dike as well. I even took in some road work down there and across to parts of the Delta Greenway.

It’s tough to bike in the winter though. I live in an apartment and keep the bike in a “den” of sorts. Unfortunately I need to trudge the bike through the carpeted apartment to the carpeted den for storage. Things can get messy really fast with water and mud, so I’ve avoided rainy riding. Silly maybe, but true.

Over the winter, I tried a Trek Cycleops indoor trainer, but didn’t do very well. Riding the trainer was pretty boring, even with the TV right in front to watch. I won’t say I didn’t use it, I just didn’t use it as much as I could have. Mostly I just went back to walking whenever I could, but unfortunately, that wasn’t much.

Time to get back to the bike now. I’ve had it out a few times, and I’m building up to longer rides. My trips have been about 5 km on park trails, and I just started testing myself on the roads again today. I want to get back to the ‘at least’  30 km a week again and perhaps get in some cycling done in other areas of Metro Vancouver. The Richmond dike comes to mind right now…

Anyway, just an update for the blog. Perhaps I can get some illustrated, touristy type posts going over the summer. We’ll see.