#2 - Planning the future
I bought the trike for some very specific reasons. First of all, my health required something. I had to start working out again, to battle my diabetes. But my options were limited by my hernia. Walking was fine, riding a regular bike wasn’t. It bends my neck the wrong way. The same for swimming. Especially the biking wa a bummer. I just rekindled that old love, And I didn’t want to give it up again that quick. So I started looking for alternatives. Recumbent bicycles came in the picture. But I didn’t feel that comfortable with the position of the steering often being under the seat. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe that wouldn’t be an issue once I would get used to it. But it made me look elsewhere.
Recumbent trikes came in the picture. The third wheel offers more stability. And I found a model with plenty of space to pack it heavy. I started dreaming. What if I wouldn’t just ride it around the block so to say? What epic adventures could I have really touring? Revisiting places I’ve been to in the past? Could I do that? I did it in the past. Riding my dad’s old racing bike, I once did a 300 km round trip in a day. That huge ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream at the coast still is a very vivid memory. And I’ve always said the fitness was gone, but the muscles were still there. Some of them at least.
To be realistic, it would be a struggle. Telling myself I could just mount the trike, and start riding it for days on end would be like telling myself I could run a marathon. I wouldn’t get far. I’d probably be exhausted, the starting line still in sight. So I would have to start training again. Working out. Taking it one day at a time. Like that was going to happen. I've always been an all-or-nothing kind of guy. Often that didn’t work out in my favor, and that’s a risk in this case as well.
So I decided to listen to my body this time. Setting out for rides as often as I could. Starting against the wind every time. So the ride back would be lighter on the legs. As long as Mother Nature didn’t decide to throw me a curveball by changing the winds direction of course. Usually, I had some rough idea of the road I’d take, and how far I would ride it. Sometimes, I made that, sometimes I didn’t. I had rides where I turned around not even finishing half the days goal, and I’ve had rides beating that goal impressively. And that’s something I have to overcome before setting of on multiple day tours. I would need to have a rough idea of what I can take in a day, for days in a row. Because I can plan all I want, but if those plans aren’t realistic, I won’t make it.
I’m riding the trike now for about 3 weeks. And there’s already a clear evolution. Week one and two, I needed to adjust to the seating position. You use your muscles in a different way. And it felt like I even used other muscles. I started to play around with my positioning on the trike. Thanks to the way AZUB designed the TRIcon, that was made very easy for me. The seat slides and the boom in the front does as well. Making it real easy to adjust for the optimal seating position.
Starting week three, I felt more at ease on the trike. Allowing me to really test my limits. That week, I rode for more than 250 km for the first time. Including two day trips of more than 70 km. Now I was getting somewhere. It started to feel like traveling by trike was really possible. There was still a long road to go. And there will be set backs of course. But I was closing in on those illusive 100 km rides. A goal I’d set myself before taking of on my first tour. I’d need to be able to do that a couple of days in a row. With gear. All loaded up.
For now, that’s still a dream. But the plans get more set in stone.
