It's modern, modest, doesn't splash, and it's a nice touch in a very urban setting.
I stopped to take the photo because I noticed the fountain as I waited for the light to change. Now that I am thinking about how to describe how it fits in this morning's ride, the fountain seems like an expression of my recent post about how change often behaves like ocean currents.
This is a very short post.
Today our condo was assessing the underground parking as part of its capital planning and the experts wanted the P1 level empty today.
Condo life is relatively new for Susan and I. It's just over seven years. In all that time, I have never, ever, ever seen the parking empty.
Time.
It was time. It's about time. It's time.
In 2010 it was time to begin riding Vespas. The Scoot Commute is what I called it, because, inspired by what I saw so many Parisians doing when I was briefly in Paris in 2008, I decided to commute to work in Montreal on a Vespa.
It all kicked off in the early spring of 2010. I won't go into too much detail on what followed. It's all laid out in minute detail in this journal (blog? I like journal. I don't like that it sounds hoity-toity though. Oh well.). To make things easier there is a link to a chronological list of posts above, or you can click here.
That decision to live more of my life on two wheels affected so many things. I learned to be even more different than in the past. Although, to be honest, I was always different. A lefty, bilingual, raised a Catholic, but married a beloved Jew, disowned by my parents, then forgiven. The list goes on. Commuting sixty kilometres a day on a Vespa in a busy city, rain or shine, in the heat or the cold? That's not 'normal', but...
I made friends. Not in my neighbourhood, like 'normal' people do, but all over the place. In Ontario, in British Columbia, in Pennsylvania, in New York State, in Florida, in Germany. I rode scooters in all those places. I rode a scooter to the Piaggio plant in Pontedera, Italy (to be fair, Italy is not exactly Germany, but I was riding with my German friends, so there's that). Never in my wildest dreams could I have pictured all the joy my Vespas would bring.
Today it's time.
Journeys all have places where experience shifts. Sometimes change is abrupt and jarring. Mostly though, there is a gentle drift, when the dominant theme and a new theme join paths, like ocean currents, unseen, seamless, relentless, eventually drifting apart, each going their own way.
Miata, meet Vespa. David sails off on a dragon red Vespa, and the mid-life-crisis-red Miata (Susan coined that colour) is left behind, and eventually, over time, takes a different path (from David to Marc, and beyond).
Vespa meet Brompton. David pedals off, folding, unfolding, folding, unfolding... and just like a Brompton, the journey must always be unfolding and shifting. Now the dragon red Vespa sits idle, and soon, in a matter of days, it will take a different path (from David, to Adam, and beyond).
A note to Adam.
Adam, my wish for you, is that your new Vespa will light up your life, the way Vespas lit mine.
Would you be content to live there?
I know, what kind of a question is that?
Context often makes the difference between the head-scratch-and-cock-eyed-stare, and the nod.
It's a little street, or laneway, that meanders along a row of townhouses, closer to the eastern tip of one of my usual morning rides.
Approximately two years of riding that route, once or twice a week, from early spring to late fall, and I never managed to notice the street name before this morning.
What a great name!
Early this morning, eleven degrees Celsius, with blue skies and gorgeous puffy white clouds, headed to 26C (if you can believe it), that street sign seemed like the harbinger of a great outdoor riding season to come.
So long P2 Loop, hello Flaming Roseway!
PS: it's now quarter to six and twenty-six degrees Celsius on April 12, 2023!!!!! And my Brompton cycling adventures in the early morning now total 2,422 kilometres!!!!!!
PPS: 20230425 My friend Ed (see the comments on this post) is a very creative guy. I often think that there isn't anything he could set his mind to that he wouldn't be able to do. Ed sent me these images of his handy work in designing and building an actual Roseway. Here is Ed's Roseway:
If there is one thing that seems clear to me at this point in my life, it's that you and I have a love-hate relationship with progress.
Many people might say they enjoy progress.
Progress and the colourful merry-go-round at the town fair have many things in common.
The gentle spin as the ride begins is delightful; we happily anticipate more to come; the slow swirl of the early rotation has us wanting more; a twirl that makes us flick our heads left and right to make sense of the scene beyond the prancing horses makes us tighten our grip on the pole; all too soon, we begin to have had our fill of the ride; any faster and we fear losing our grip...
My grandfather was a published author. I only recently read some of this books. I can safely say that unless you studied French-Canadian literature at a Quebec university, you have never, ever heard of Oscar Masse.
I never met him, he passed three years before I was born.
The novel I am reading now, published in 1922, begins in his present but quickly shifts to explore what life was in the 17th century, in what was then neither Canada, nor the U.S.
Oscar began his book with his impression of progress. He wrote of the modern wonder of steam and electricity, how cars replaced his father's horse and carriage, cinema replaced theatre, how planes seemed destined to replace cars, and he foretold a crazy future where telephones might become wireless. His narrative then slips back in time, to the early days of the colony and he paints a picture of a very different world.
For many, 1922 has left no trace in our present. Here in Toronto, that past has been mostly erased as the new replaces the old at a crazy pace. The skyline seen from the lake no longer looks like what it did even ten years ago.
The truth is that all technology progresses at an exponential pace, whether it's the industrial revolution, or the digital one.
In large measure progress today is driven by computer chips, either directly, like our 'smart' phones, or indirectly where data networks, container shipping, and air travel result in our global economy. We have shrunk the world. North America, Europe, and Asia were, not that long ago, worlds apart, and now are only hours apart. What happens in Moscow and Beijing, affects the price of our bread and butter within just a few days.
Some of us want off that carousel. To return to a time that made more sense to us, when our neighbours were more like us, spoke like us, ate as we ate. When we didn't need to update our software, when our cars didn't sense their surroundings...
I have to admit that the pace of change once really frightened me, freaked me out, when I was sure that younger, computer-armed generations, would surely obliterate my career because computers and I were strangers.
I survived, unscathed, and even prospered, once I learned to type and made computers my friends.
Today I gave up my morning bike ride in the sub-basement to share these thoughts with you.
I enjoy writing and sharing. It's something that allows me to express the essence of my self. To be artistic, to share my thoughts, and perhaps to persuade...?
In recent years, the world has witnessed a rapid and exponential pace of change in various aspects of life. The advancement in technology, globalization, and demographic shifts have accelerated the pace of change, making it challenging for individuals, societies, and even institutions to keep up. The exponential pace of change has been so rapid and unprecedented that it has made people long for a return to simpler times.The capacity to adapt to change is an essential aspect of human life. However, rapid, complex, and unrelenting changes can overwhelm even the most adaptable humans. The exponential pace of change has been so rapid that people are struggling to adapt to its consequences. This struggle to adapt is evident in many aspects of our lives, including our social, economic, and political lives.People's longing for a return to simpler times can be attributed to the fears and uncertainties brought about by change. The rapid pace of change has left people feeling vulnerable, overwhelmed by its negative impacts, and uncertain about the future. As technology and globalization continue to shape the world's landscape, people fear that they may be left behind if they do not keep up. For instance, the exponential pace of technological change has created anxiety about job loss, privacy concerns, and social isolation, making people nostalgic for simpler times.The pace of change is also affecting social values and norms. The traditional social norms and values that have governed human societies for generations are undergoing rapid changes. The internet and social media have fundamentally changed how people communicate, interact, and form relationships. The traditional social norms that helped build communities and social cohesion now face significant challenges. This loss of traditional social norms is generating a longing for a return to simpler times when the community and interpersonal relationships were the backbone of society.Moreover, the exponential pace of change is driving the demand for quick fixes and immediate gratification. People are used to getting anything they want, whenever they want it. This kind of instantaneous gratification is making people impatient, making them desire simpler times when life was more predictable and manageable.In conclusion, the exponential pace of change is outpacing our capacity to adapt to it. As a result, people are uneasy about the consequences of change, and they long for a return to simpler times. However, change is inevitable, and we need to come up with strategies to adapt to it without losing the positive elements of our traditional values and norms. Rather than fighting or resisting change, we should embrace it, learn from it, and take steps to mitigate its negative effects.
Oh wow... Let's see... literally as I ate my breakfast, a) I searched on Google on my iPad for "ChatGPT"; b) I downloaded the app from the Apple App store; c) I posed the question; d) I hit enter; e) I waited maybe three minutes, maybe less, and BINGO! In all, in well under ten minutes I went from almost no knowledge or experience with AI, to that article.
The app wouldn't let me copy the output, or even my own input. I'm guessing that it "thinks" that it owns the copyright to my input as well as to its output? Let's see, as between one who sows the seeds and reaps the crop, that nature produces, who owns the crop, Mother Nature or MOI? I suppose that, for now, its intelligence is truly artificial.
I should add that it took my tools and my knowledge of computers to do a screenshot of the output, airdrop it to my desktop, feed the screenshot to my text scanner, edit the transcription in my word processor to remove spurious carriage returns, and paste it into blogger.
OK, so now I'm both lawyering AND bragging.
ChatGPT for its part just kept its mouth shut and instantly produced, claiming no credit, as far as I can tell.
So what do you think? Who wrote the better article? Was it me, or my 'buddy' AI?
I spent hours, thinking, conceiving, writing, editing, preening, re-reading, tweaking, from 7:15 until I published this at 12:17.
AI puked out its text in mere minutes.
So that's now. And in two years, four years, a decade? If computers as we knew them spawned social media that might just be rotting society to its core, what will AI do?
I have no fear for my future. That's because I basically no longer have a future to speak of. I'll be 71 in June.
How does all this make you feel?
I'm curious.
Surprise!
This morning I was surprised.
"Surprise" is a word that gets lots of use. "I was surprised..." "we surprised him with..." "it was a surprise to learn..." "it was a nice surprise..." "I don't like surprises..." "it may surprise you...."
My surprise today happened on my morning P2 Loop.
No, it's nothing even remotely bad or disturbing. Besides, I do my best to be extremely focused and on the lookout for cars and people coming and going.
What surprised me this morning was a first for all of my 286 P2 Loops to date: another cyclist came down the ramp from P1. Hard to tell, but I suspect he was as surprised to see me, as I was surprised to see him.
I am posting this because it's an opportunity to explore what a surprise is. I think that it's something sufficiently out of the ordinary that it lights up our neurons as soon as it happens. Not always enough to provoke a significant physical reaction like a jerk, or a gasp, or a shout, but certainly enough to feel a psychic jolt of a kind. It's definitely a physical experience that stems from our perception of our environment.
We become familiar with our environment. We develop complex sets of expectations. It's our way of navigating our world, of predicting the imminent future. The surprise is unexpected. This encounter certainly fit that bill.
He was a serious cyclist, perhaps a commuter returning home. Our paths crossed in an instant. We were traveling in opposite directions, me northbound approaching the ramp, he exiting the ramp to head southbound. I assume he was headed to P3 because after that brief moment I didn't see him again.
We were alike in many ways as far as I recall. Both men, both dressed in shades of dark grey, both wearing gloves and black helmets, both alert, and very focused on riding, both moving at a decent pace. Both silent in our movement.
We were also quite different. His was a road bike, mine a Brompton. Mine had lights fore and aft, his had none.
Now I wonder how he would describe our flash encounter.
Was he surprised?
Happy Spring!
I'm glad I asked.
Clearly it depends on what you count.
Stars? A million is nothing, less than a drop in the universe.
Grains of sand? Nada. Maybe a sand castle on a beach?
Humans? Humans are never nothing. We are just the most amazing and bewildering things in the universe... as near as we can tell, we think. It's likely that many of the cities boasting of a million or more people, are places you have never even heard of.
Money? Ha... not what it once was, that's for sure.
"Good morning" are two words that I give, and receive, multiple times during my morning P2 Loop.
They bring happiness, and start my day on the right note.
This morning an enthusiastic dog turned, looked me in the eye as I was passing and woofed a few woofs while nodding and wagging its tail. I took that as "Good morning" so I said "Woof, woof" with a smile, which I took to be pooch also for "Good morning".
Pedal strikes occur when you are pedalling through a turn.
You need to be going at a pretty good clip, you need to be pedalling or to have the pedal at its lowest reach, and the turn needs to be sharp enough so that the bike leans to the point where your pedal strikes the ground on its rotation.
That happened TWICE on the P2 loop this morning.
What is a pedal strike like?
Well, each time it instantly lit up my neurons in a way that I can only describe as both unwelcome and scary.
Fortunately that's all that happened.
My fear is that the pedal could lift the bike when it hits the ground (in this case concrete) throwing it off balance and causing a crash.
That has never happened to me, thank heavens, so I can only imagine what that crash would be like. But it would be in a turn, at a pretty brisk speed. It makes me cringe thinking about it.
Of course the prudent things to do would be a) to slow down, b) make sure that the pedal inside the turn is fully raised, in this case, it's a right-hand curve, so it's the right-hand pedal, and c) watch those tight corners.
I suspect that the actual risk of a crash is less than I fear. I have seen Vespa motor scooters being ridden at ridiculous speeds along tight and winding roads with showers of sparks when the center stand or side-stand scrapes the pavement. Vespas seem unperturbed and un-inclined to crash.
Speaking of Vespas, I have had my side-stand scrape the ground on a tight left turn. It feels just as awful as a pedal strike.
This week I logged the kilometres that took my total distance recorded to over 2,000 kilometres.
I started tracking of my daily routines exactly 500 days ago today. That count of days is a coincidence, truly. I was pleasantly surprised when the count in my spreadsheet yielded that nice, precise, round number this morning. Tracking my activities began about a year after I read James Clear's Atomic Habits. That's an average of four kilometres a day. I find that a little difficult to grasp to be honest. I don't typically ride on weekends, but for the past year I do ride every week day, except when other priorities intrude, like vacations.
During the winter I ride indoors down in our condo garage on what I like to call the P2 Loop. I posted a video of what that looks like when we first got our Brompton bicycles. You can see that here if you skip to the 12 minute mark.
When you do something like that regularly, at roughly the same time each day, you get to know a tiny bit about other folks as they come and go when you are down there looping away.
There is a mother with two young daughters I often see. To say that the daughters are adorably cute is an understatement. As I ride by them I smile and do a little wave. Yesterday they giggled and I heard their mother as she glanced in my direction say "yes it's bicycle man!"
It's those little things that add happiness to my routine, and help to set the tone for my day.
My parents relied on Dr. Spock. No… not Mr. Spock, Dr. Spock.
My mother had a dog-eared, tea-stained, well beaten-up, paperback bible from the good doctor aptly titled Baby and Child Care. I see in the Wikipedia entry that Benjamin McLane Spock was not merely a pediatrician but also a left-wing activist. Can that account for my progressive political inclinations? Unlikely, because I’m pretty sure that most of the parents of my conservative-inclined peers were also slaves to that seminal book on post-war child-rearing.
I spent the best years of my childhood in the early 1960’s in a brand-spanking-new Montreal suburb with a ton of other kids. For grades three and four I walked one-and-a-quarter miles back and forth to school, often solo, four times daily. The path was along the shoulder of a country highway. The destination was a quaint, modest, very retro, 19th century, two-story, four-room, red-brick schoolhouse. It had a bell in a gable on the roof with a cord that dangled in the ground floor hallway. Lucky kids got to ring it. That was before the new, closer to home, mid-century modern elementary school was built.
My friends and I spent our summers ranging all over the former rural landscape on our bikes, hunting frogs, digging in sand pits, climbing trees, building forts, slogging along creeks in our billy-boots often mired in deep mud and getting “soakers”. We often collected empty soft-drink soda bottles from residential construction sites. We trucked hundred of bottles home in our wagons, rinsed off the mud in our driveways, then took them to the grocery store a couple of miles away to collect the deposits. As soon as we pocketed the cash, we headed down the mall to Woolworth’s to buy plastic model cars and WWII fighter planes, glue and paint.
We did all that as 9 to 12 year olds, all on our own. No cell-phones. No parents. Most often miles from home. We’d set out for hours at a time. Our mothers had absolutely no idea where we were, or what we were doing. I never recall any motherly-angst, from any of our mothers.
In the evenings we’d gather in front of a TV and watch some shows, on a rainy day maybe Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian and that crazy gang.
Leap forward 20-30 years, and we were raising our own kids. TV played a much bigger role. Our two or three year-old daughter memorized Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. Team sports like soccer and hockey were also a big deal. Bikes, much less. Foraging in fields and forests, not at all. Our kids didn’t roam like I did. Never. There was no Dr. Spock. We bought diapers in boxes, and baby bottles were plastic. As a parent I don’t recall being stressed out. Sure there was an occasional trip to the ER, some head-scratching moments at parent-teacher nights. But overall, I wouldn’t say any of it was a challenge we felt we couldn’t comfortably handle.
Fast-forward another 20-30 years. We have grandkids. They request an iPhone from mom or dad and at three and four years old, they swipe through photos and videos on the phone with what I can only call great skill and confidence, easily finding their favorites from among hundreds and hundreds of tiny thumbnails, with an ease that sparks a certain envy on my part.
And that’s where the looming challenge lies for our kids as parents. It’s as scary as a leopard stalking unseen in tall grass. When do their kids get their own phones? Obviously not now, but almost certainly that day will come all too soon. And with that phone, come games, messages, email, and SOCIAL MEDIA.
There is no doubt whatsoever that social media is poisoning public discourse and infecting society. That’s the least of it. Much too often it is proving to be lethal among children and teenagers. Truly deadly. Often suicide, lately spawning swarming by kids who commit assaults, and here in Toronto, a recent random murder.
How do you raise children to become confident, resourceful, socially mature, responsible, and capable adults when there is a truly threatening, ubiquitous, and poisonous environment, constantly present that’s impossible to see or apprehend and neutralize?
Ban cell phones, computers and tablets? No that’s not really an option. The schools are increasingly requiring those devices as part of the curriculum.
That means that the worst aspects of social media are inevitable in the near future for our grandchildren. Likes and dislikes, misinformation, inappropriate selfies, virtual cliques and gangs, bullying, extortion, blackmail…
I wish this was an unreasonable overreaction on my part, an irrational delusion, my unreasonable fear, or my paranoid delusion.
Unfortunately I truly believe, very regrettably, that it is a not-too distant reality.
I find myself asking what I would do as a parent? Where would I turn for reliable guidance? Where is the Dr. Spock for today’s parents?
Is the answer to be found in just a few clicks on the internet? It’s a sea of information, and there is no Dr. Spock dominating the digital horizon, offering wise advice to spare. There is no shortage of advice, but where is the good, effective, reliable advice?
I don’t know.
Do you have any insights or guidance you can share?
Seven degrees Celsius at seven o'clock this morning.
22 years into the century, and there are many mysteries. Why are we so poorly behaved? Who would have ever thought that many who worshipped George Washington for his honesty, would shrug truth into irrelevance, without so much as a pause, or second thought. It boggles my mind.
The weather is another head-scratcher.
SEVEN DEGREES!!! It's December 30th for heaven's sake. Buffalo, a mere 100 kilometres south of Toronto, has suffered an unprecedented winter storm. In a city that gets more than its fair share of snow, where people know how to cope with winter weather better than most, more than 40 people have lost their lives as a direct result of the storm that paralyzed the city. It boggles my mind.
As I write this, it's now 10 degrees here, headed to eleven degrees.
Yes, you are correct! I did not loop the P2 loop this morning. It was truly a joy to ride outdoors: south to Mel Lastman Square, west through the cemetery to Senlac, on through the side streets to Bathurst, north to the Finch corridor path, east to Yonge, and south back home. In all 8.5 thoroughly enjoyable kilometres.
I bundled up (3 layers, including a top waterproof one; mitts; ear warmer band; neck thingy). IT WAS BALMY when I left the garage. Warmer outside than in the indoor parking. I had to lower some zippers. Sheesh!
Look at this.
Yes, we did get a blizzard while the rest of Ontario, Quebec and New York was getting slammed with snow.
This is all that remains. Many Torontonians prayed for the snow so we could have a white Christmas. Evidently we prayed a little too much. We owe our neighbours a heartfelt apology.
In truth, praying for a white Christmas is not the cause of all this unprecedented pain and grief. It's global warming. At least that's what I think. I could be wrong. But why risk life on earth when we could act to become carbon neutral and substantially address the threat of a global catastrophe?
My very best wishes to my family, dear friends, and dear readers. Let's all hope and pray that we right the course and sail to better times.
Have you ever ridden a bike 9.6 kilometres in a garage?
It's a very different experience from riding outdoors, that's obvious. I know.
The thing is, that when you do anything very often, you come to appreciate the experience more deeply. Even when the thing you are doing seems dull and completely uninviting. Like riding a bicycle in a garage.
Repetition and focus are the key factors, but there are others that distinguish riding in a garage from riding outdoors. Each experience has features that satisfy.
Outdoors, there is a rich and varied soundscape. Cars and traffic, dogs that bark close by or in the distance. Vehicles approaching with that distinct whirring of tires on pavement. Pedestrians walking in pairs chatting. Their conversation drifts in from completely indistinct to just a very few words that make it to your brain, and the words instantly drift away into oblivion. Jets glide by sounding like they are tearing a strip out of the sky. Sirens scream and honk aggressively, and recede, eventually to be replaced by the soft airflow of an approaching car, or the rustle of leaves in a breeze. In a quiet moment the bike intrudes. The click of a shift, the faint noise of the thin hard tires on the pavement, the clunk, clunk, clunk of seams in the sidewalk. The slope of the landscape, sometimes letting you glide effortlessly, and inevitably reclaiming that gift as you lose your momentum, hear your breathing, and pull on the bars to reclaim that altitude. The bell speaking to pedestrians. Or to shifty squirrels. The ride repeats perhaps once a week, because there are alternate routes. And in a single route, there are few repetitions. Not none, but precious few.
Outdoors, even in an uninspiring place, like a busy street, or a parking lot, a million details compete for attention. Traffic and pedestrian flow. Potholes. Linear gaps and lines made by uneven seams or slabs that run parallel to the line of travel and light up your brain as your tires threaten to drift into their potent trap and jerk your bike off-balance. The sky in its infinite glory. Sunshine warming your body. A sky that is constantly shifting, familiar, yet never the same. Clouds, unobscured blue sky, fog, mist, light rain, grey featureless swaths of endless boredom. Dark mid-day skies, heavy with the threat of rain, as the leaves on their branches show their undersides in the breeze. You expect thunder at any moment, and you are wary of lightning. Yes, there is risk, but generally I see it coming in plenty of time to make other plans. So far.
Indoors, each loop is 0.16 of a kilometre. There are 60 loops in a 34 minute ride, timed on my watch, each loop taking 34 seconds. 9.6 kilometres. It's much more science than it is art. That's not to say that it's artless. What you see seems always the same, but there are differences. There are also subtle differences. The parking spaces seem always home to the same car. But there is a cycle of change, ever so slow, yet it's there. When someone gets a new car, you notice. Then there are two types of parkers: nose-in, and nose-out. I have a theory that people who like what their car looks like tend to back in to their spots. They are nose-outers. When a consistent nose-outer parks nose-in, you notice.
Indoors, the light is white, flat, and constant through the loop, yet it also varies. There are bright spots, usually reflections of the LED ceiling tube-lights in the eight semi-circular convex mirrors that dot the route, helping you see around corners. But also glinting off the surface of cleaner cars. My flashing headlight pulses off cars at certain angles. There are patterns. patterns in the concrete floor, but more importantly, patterns of behaviour. People are fairly consistent. If I ride between seven and seven-thirty a.m., the comings and goings I see are very different than if I ride from eight-thirty to nine. Usually I am looping from 7:15 to 7:45. I get to know the 'regulars'. With some I exchange a greeting. Others have their eyes on their phones.
Indoors, safety is as important as ever. People don't expect a cyclist in their garage. My bike is like a ghost, it only makes noise in one place, where the floor slopes towards the corner. That's where I hit maximum speed. The tires make an exciting whirring, almost whining sound in that curve. Otherwise I am so silent, it is up to me to avoid the comers and goers. I listen to jazz streaming on my AirPods. I keep the volume very low because ambient noise is key to avoiding cars and people. I can hear as soon as a car is in motion, either coming in, or leaving. Often even when the car is in motion on P1 or P3. My headlight and tail lights help the drivers see me. Kids often chatter, which is good because they sometimes run, weaving their way from the elevator lobby to the family car. Mostly people are as silent as my bike. I am always listening, always watching. There are cues. Is the door to the elevator lobby closing? Is there movement in the big corner mirror? Did a car door close? Did an engine start? If a car just parked on P1, where are the people as they make their way to the elevator? Every 34 seconds the pattern repeats, check the door, check the mirror, check the path through the cars, check the mirror, check the door... I am the alien, it's all on me, I yield to all comers and goers.
The P2 loop is about more than exercise. I love to ride. When the weather makes riding outdoors impractical, I loop on P2. The repeating patterns, the need to read the cues, the constant focus, the aural backdrop of jazz playing softly, the occasional greeting, smile, or wave, the patterns on the floor as I follow the same path that avoids oncoming cars and drain covers (they make a horrible clank that reverberates jarringly in the space).
All of this adds up to an ethereal, rarified, calm, and focused experience, very different from riding outdoors. It brings its own brand of joy that I have grown to appreciate.
That's why I decided to share it here.
Today was my 76th P2 loop. 730 kilometres of indoor life, on two wheels.
I mentioned that Atomic Habits has altered the way I live my life.
One of the tips I got from James Clear is to build structures around your desired habits that help to make those habits a reliable part of your daily routine.
One of the structures that James recommends is a "habit scorecard". It's really simple. You make a list of the activities you want to include in your daily life. My list is, of course, in a spreadsheet.
I started tracking my daily activities on September 29 last year.
When I do the thing that I feel ought to be part of my daily routine, I get an "X" in that activity's pigeonhole for that day. I never cheat. I never exagerate.
One column is "Move - walk, ride, swim". If I walk the pigeonhole gets a "W". If I ride my bike, it's an "R". Swims are rare.
When I ride in the underground garage doing the P2 loop, the pigeonhole gets a "P2".
In March of this year when my morning rides went from the garage to the great outdoors, I was able to use the activity app on my iPhone to track my rides. From that point on I not only noted the fact that I had ridden, I noted the distance.
In that way, in the early morning on November 11, I knew the exact moment and the exact place where I reached 1,000 kms.
I then went back in time (in my spreadsheet) to February 2, of this year. That was when I determined that 60 P2 loops adds up to 9.6 kms. I then added those kilometres.
My early morning rides, as I write this, amount to not less than 1,483.68 kms.
That's a lot of kilometres. All in under a year.
If I stick to my routine, Monday I will cross the 1,500 kilometre line.
Wow!
A bunch of little steps can really add up to something BIG! Quicker than you think!!
