Rode to Publix this morning to pick up a few things. Didn't record the ride as a "workout," so I don't have a lot of specific data; but the watch records the activity anyway, including my heart rate. It's a windy day today, enough so that I wouldn't have ordinarily taken the bike. But the motor essentially negates the wind as a factor. (One minor exception, riding into the wind creates enough breeze that if my mouth is open, because I'm grinning like a fool, my tooth hurts.)

On the way there, I stayed in level 2 assist. When I went out biking with Mitzi last weekend, I stayed in level 1 and it was comfortable in 3rd gear without overtaking Mitzi or leaving her behind. With the wind today, I needed level 2 to keep up a decent speed. And by "decent" I mean 15mph, which is 25% faster than I could ride without the motor!

So the ride to the store was basically effortless.

Riding home, with the groceries on the front rack, I bumped up the assist level to 3 to quickly get up speed. I probably could have just started out in first gear and accomplished much the same thing. In a lower gear, the pedal would have been turning faster and the assist would have kicked in sooner. It's just that transition from standing at a light to rolling with a large load on the front tire that gets kind of wobbly. Without the motor, I'd always be in 1st gear starting out.

Along the way, I noticed a rider across the street from me, apparently also on an ebike, because I wasn't really gaining on them. So I felt a little competitive and bumped the assist level up to 4 (out of 5). On the way home, the wind was at my back, so I quickly got up to 19mph where the motor essentially cuts out. I did overtake my unwitting competitor, who seemed to take notice and accelerated, closing the distance between us. But I was at my turn for home, so the "race" was effectively over.

I stayed in level 4 and pedaled hard. I was riding in the road on the bike path and the faster you go, the less the relative speed between you and the jerks in cars who won't move over at all. ("People are great. Drivers are assholes.") In this instance, it was a guy in a super-duty truck with a diesel and some kind of resonator exhaust, pulling a Bobcat front-loader on a trailer, who seemed to feel as though he had to make some sort of statement by passing me as near to my lane as he could, while accelerating as hard (and as loud) as he could.

That's probably where my heart rate reached 164, according to my watch. Definitely got a workout.

I hate Florida.

But I love my bike.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 12:38 Friday, 18 October 2024