bike log: there are several of us!
Followup to sometimes you just gotta bike.
I was lucky in at least two regards: it was a beautiful day out, and it turns out that my bike seat is comfortable enough that I can ride back even after being zapped in the nether regions. I've noticed how I haven't yet needed bike shorts or products named "butt'r" when going long distances on this bike.
I don't know if I'm the only one who would bike to the laser clinic. They do have a bike rack outside, which means they're more accommodating than the average grocery store, and they're not just vaguely near the American Tobacco Trail like I thought: they're on it. I followed the signposted trail literally to the back of their parking lot.
I didn't tell them I got there on my bike. The laser operators are uncomfortable with even the concept that I sometimes go outside and let the sun touch my skin, so I was worried that bringing it up meant they wouldn't laser my legs like they were planning to. But I put on enough sunscreen, and wiped off the sunscreen and sweat when I got there. It was fine. And the receptionist at least must have seen me parking my bike.
The weather outside was just cool enough. I wouldn't say what's happening with the trees is "autumn" so much as that the leaves are worn out after a hard summer's work of making energy from the intermittent scorching sunlight, and some of them have opted for an early retirement. The leaves are either green or brown, with just the occasional fringe of yellow.
Just across the street from the laser place is my favorite coffee shop, where I went to recover and have lunch. There were several bikes on the bike racks, and when unlocking my bike I ended up in a conversation with two other cyclists. Not only am I far from the only person who bikes to that coffee shop, I'm not the only person who bikes over 15 miles to that coffee shop. Both the other cyclists I was talking to had come from farther south than me!
The topic of conversation was how we all had gotten there because, in fact, the American Tobacco Trail is not in perfect condition at the moment. Our area was, fortunately, mostly unharmed by Hurricane Helene, but just south of the intersection where the trail from where I live joins the ATT, the trail is washed out and covered in fallen branches.
And when I was on the unpaved section of the trail, I found that the rainstorm has slightly rearranged it as well. I hit a pothole deep enough that it released the spring on my phone holder. It actually still managed to hold on to the phone case, but the phone itself was launched out of it, which is exactly how I wouldn't want it to happen. Remarkably, my phone seems unscathed by skidding across gravel at 15 mph.
As a side note, I really have to figure out a plan for how to get photos from my phone onto this site. I spent an hour getting them off my phone and figuring out how to convert them into a format and file size that Bear Blog would accept. If you have a trick for getting photos from an iPhone onto a blog, let me know in the comment box.
Comments
espie:
re: "bike log: there are several of us!" and how to move photos between places, i have a discord server with literally only myself in it for the sole use of transferring images from phone to computer or vice versa. i can see a couple reasons why that might not be the cleanest or best solution but it's more than good enough for me
I may end up using this. Discord doesn't allow me to DM myself -- possibly to discourage exactly this use case -- but a server only I am in would work just as well.