An interesting day on my bicycle

[BailOut]

I was working from home today and had some down time. I decided to run my errands.

I had borrowed a bicycle stand, tools, tubes, pump, etc. from the Kiwanis shop in order to support the river tour/bicycle ride that I hosted for Big Brothers Big Sisters last Saturday. I loaded it all onto my Yak and headed out, only to realize after a few blocks that I forgot to grab my keys to the shop. That added a mile and a half onto the trip. The loadout weighed about 60 pounds.



This won't mean much to folks that aren't local to Reno but I handled "University Hill" better than I anticipated. However, once I got about half way up Comstock Road I had to stop and rest for 2 minutes. I was sucking wind something fierce! The ride there was 13.5 miles.

At the Kiwanis shop I put everything away then selected a refurbished bicycle that I can leave at and use at my office in Tahoe now that I don't drive up there (I ride to a carpool in south Reno). I took it in back and worked on it to my satisfaction. I then added kickstands to both my hybrid bike and my Yak. I also grabbed a helmet that can stay with the Tahoe bike and then loaded it all into my Yak. This loadout weighed about 40 pounds.



I went all over the central part of town with this load while the sky threatened to rain on me. At least it was cool. First to REI for some bicycle tools and a seat-type bag for the Yak, but they didn't have any emergency-style ponchos (they fit nicely in a seat bag) or 3-socket wrenches. From there I went to a hunter's type store and found the kind of poncho I was looking for. I then had lunch at a Port-of-Subs where I scarfed down about 1,800 calories without flinching. From there I hit an AT&T store for another iPhone charging cable since I will need to be able to charge my phone at the office, also because I'm not driving there anymore and therefore can't charge it in the car.

On my way to my next stop I came across a car stopped crooked in the bike lane and as I got closer I could see an overturned electric wheelchair and a white haired man on the asphalt. It turned out that he had been on the sidewalk and was trying to maneuver around a lightpost that had been planted right in the middle of it but there wasn't enough space and his chair went over the curb. He was dumped in the street and hit his head quite hard. I had the lady that stopped call 911 as another woman pulled over in front of us. I determined that the man wasn't in any immediate danger (I used to be a Paramedic) and did my best to make him comfortable while we waited. No one had anything soft to get under his head so that it wasn't on the street so I took off my riding shirt (which had extra padding due to having my mountain biking gloves wadded up in the rear pockets) and set it up as a pillow for him while the newcomer got his cell phone out for him and called his daughter.



After a few minutes an ambulance and fire truck arrived and took over, and I got my shirt back. I rode on to my favorite bike shop in town, Great Basin Bicycles. My friend from the Kiwanis Club was on duty and I always enjoy his company. They were also out of the tool I was still looking for but they were able to order it for me, as well as a handlebar-mounted horn. I refilled my water bottle and got to look at some incredibly expensive road bikes they were working on for a racer. Custom built, all carbon fiber, magnesium wheels... each of them is worth about as much as my Yaris.

From there I stopped by the local gardening center in the hopes of finding an adjustable-stream nozzle for our garden hose as the old one has fallen apart, but all they had were adapters for watering plants. So I had one more stop at Home Depot on the way home for the nozzle.

My total ride was just over 30 miles, the longest I have done yet with a load behind the bicycle.

What a day!