Thursday, May 31, 2012

Exercise & Learning Lessons.

Everyone knows that exercise is important.  As a doctor, I tell people every day how important exercise is.  Yet, like many people, I just don't enjoy exercising.  The closest I ever got to enjoying exercise was riding a bike.  Now that's fun.  Plus, using a bike instead of a car, is definitely part of going green, and would score me big points in my saving the environment challenge

So I thought about buying a bike, even a secondhand bike, but I didn't want to fall into the trap of paying money for exercise equipment that is not going to be used.  My first consideration was hiring a bike, certain cities (eg. Tel Aviv) have 'green bike' programs where you can rent and return bikes at docking stations throughout the city.  The concept is brilliant.  They've called it Tel-O-fun - see... I told you bikes are fun!
Unfortunately Modiin, does not yet have a Tel-O-fun system, and hiring a bike from my local bike shop just wasn't worth it.
Fortunately, my parents had an old bike lying unused in their garage (for the last  +-20 years) and they sent it to me with a friends' furniture shipment.

With no more excuses left, I 'upcycled' my broken bike with some new tyres and rode home.


Now which of you can spot the problem with the picture on the right of me riding the bike?
Don't cheat and scroll down to the rest of the story.
If you can't see it, ask your kids, they may be able to pick it out.

....
...
...
...
Answer: No helmet

The first place I rode to, was my book swap group. 
I got a lot of  "wow, that's impressive", even more of  "are you serious?"
and quite a few "Why do you not have a helmet!!?!*" 
To which I replied something about, well I don't ride fast, I'm just trying it out, I'm on the sidewalk not on the road blah blah blah...

The second place I rode to, was a meeting about e-cards.
On the way back, just a few metres from home, I crossed the road, at an angle, with a bump and fell.
Several "Oh my word, I'm so stupid"s later, I was in the semi-emergency room having a laceration on my face glued and a couple scrapes cleaned and bandaged.

I thought of posting the gory picture of me with blood dripping down my face, but some people consider that stuff gross.  So here's a pic of me with my bandaged eye and bruises.
  

The next day, I went to buy a helmet. 

Happy exercising everyone.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, I'm glad you're ok but even more glad you bought a helmet!!! Riding is a great way of staying fit, but the challenge of that first hill is a bit too much for me.

    ReplyDelete