I went for an excellent bike ride after work. The world just seems so much more beautiful from a bike. Just to look around and really appreciate the mountains and valleys and blue sky, tall trees, plump raspberries. It all seems so basic and everyday until you look at it from the bike seat.
Typical me is to read up on every new thing I get into (which can actually sometimes be a detriment, but that’s another story). I started simple with a kids book on everything bike (truth be told, at the time the library didn’t have much to offer on the shelf). Everything included a short section on maintenance, which inspired me to wash and wax my bike. Then I jumped to the adult book, which was much more complex and intimidating, and had me getting out a can of degreaser and really scrubbing the chain and gears and derailer. Looks better and now my hands stink.
Bike cleaned, my next goal is to share my love of biking with my dogs….all four of them. Them being small dogs doesn’t necessarily make it easier. We have a Schwinn bike trailer designed for kids that we picked up at a yard sale for $10. It’s been sitting in storage for a while, but we got it down and it seemed to be in okay shape. There are four straps on the back inside wall of the trailer that we had attached the dogs to. As we tugged on two of the straps, they fell off right in our hands….the fabric holding it together had disintegrated! Clearly we have some work to do on that trailer before taking the boys out.
Of course we tried to take them out despite the issues, jerry rigging a sort of attachment to keep them in using their leashes. It looked like a spider web and understandably, the dogs weren’t too happy when we put them in. After a few minutes they settled down, but I knew a better solution needed to be found!
