Arms good enough for bike again

I don't think I have ever spent a year biking so little as I have done in the past year, or at least not since I learned to ride a bike. So when I got serious RSI, I didn't immediately realise it hampered my biking. It took a while for an opportunity to arise to make that clear! But in the beginning, pretty much everything hurt, including holding on to handlebars. I did a few very short rides to the start of a walk, but wearing wrist splints, and these actually combine really badly with handlebars. So the bike ended up gathering even more dust.

When I spoke with my second physiotherapist, he recommended that I give it a try again. And I did! But it was still uncomfortable, especially on steep bits. So I avoided these. What I sometimes did, though, was bike to the end of Gerlan and park there, to make sure I could do the last bit of any walk in the south-western Carneddau quickly and comfortably on a bike. The bit on asphalt is not very scenic, and after a walk sometimes my feet are a bit sore, and doing 20 minutes or so on asphalt is then the last thing you want. And that is only a few minutes on bike so even if it wasn't particularly comfortable, I would sometimes do it. And I had been keen to try if I would be able to do a reasonable bike ride again after several weeks of physiotherapy, but the weekends were so atrocious I postponed it.

Then there was beautiful weekend. Time to give it a go again! So I took my bike and went over the old road to Ogwen cottage. And it worked! My arms were okay with this, both on the steep bits up and the steep bits down. I was really chuffed!

The implications of this are twofold; one, my action radius is bigger now. I can do walks again that start at Ogwen cottage, for instance. That helps! And two: it is legal to exercise with someone else again, but you have to exercise from home. I haven't done this yet! But now that I know I can bike reasonable distances, I can go and organise with a friend that we both bike to some location in between where each of us lives, and then bike a bit together as well. It would be nice! I haven't socially seen people for a while, except the old accidentally bumping into someone on a hillside. So I might be able to widen my horizons both physically and socially now!

Parked at Ogwen cottage; notice they even have parking for electric bikes!