What followed was not only a bit of exercise for me but a reminder that shutting oneself up in a car can cause a disconnect with those around you.<\/p>\n
It was such a pleasant ride. Part of my ride takes me along a beach bike path, when I travel on it I always wistfully think that it would be great if this was how the majority of folks traveled. I passed 3 bikers going the other way, one had panniers, one a handle bar basket and one had a plastic shopping bag hanging from the handle bars. It seems others were out doing errands\/commuting and were not just out for leisure as well.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t help but smile at the other cyclists, they nodded or smiled back.<\/p>\n
In town I waited in line at an ATM as a guy in front of me did his transaction, his bike propped up on its kick stand next to him. When he turned to leave he did a double take seeing me holding my bike, I’d like to think there was a flash of\u00c2\u00a0 “fellowship recognition” there. Unfortunately this was marred with me realizing I had forgotten my ATM card. I ended up having to move my bike to the back of the bank and going inside.<\/p>\n
My next stop was a local outdoor gear shop, I wanted to check their sale racks in preparation for an<\/p>\n upcoming climbing road trip in Utah. I didn’t see anything I wanted and left, getting my bike from the bike rack out front just as two guys pulled up in cycling gear with luggage laden bikes. “I think you guys have come from a lot farther than I have,” I said nodding at the bike trailer and then indicating my little mini purse (I usually bring a backpack but didn’t this time).<\/p>\n “Well, we came from Utah” one of the riders said with a laugh.<\/p>\n Turns out these guys were from Florida and were on a bike trip which started in Utah. They were on the last part of it, which ended in LA. It was just the two of them and I was impressed with their packing. After a short conversation we split up until I saw them again when they asked for reassurance they were going the right way.<\/p>\n If I had driven to the store I would have gone straight to my car, instead I got to meet\u00c2\u00a0 some interesting folks.<\/p>\n Moral to the story? I’m not sure if there is one, except that biking to do my errands put me in a happy, “the world can be an OK place” frame of mind and I wish more folks could experience it.<\/p>\n National Bike Month was a good idea. And, while I’m not going to propose my climbing buds and I bike to Utah for our road trip, I do intend to keep biking locally. Every little bit counts I say, both for the environment and our sense of community.<\/p>\n By the way, you can read about Bob and Ben’s ride at Bob’s blog here<\/a>.<\/p>\n An exasperated driver next to me exclaimed, “Really!?! Guy, really!?!” I had pushed the pedestrian crosswalk button and a car had stopped about 3 feet away from the painted lines – right in front of the other driver who was wanting to make a left hand turn. I only heard this driver because his window…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[118,15],"tags":[163,376,161,95,162,160,159],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa1ZbT-ie","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":897,"url":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/start-em-young-mountain-biking\/","url_meta":{"origin":1130,"position":0},"title":"Start ’em Young – Mountain Biking?","author":"Eileen Ringwald","date":"December 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Ok, not exactly mountain biking, but a bike that can get kids biking a bit earlier than when I started (I think I started around 7). I went to an art show curated by a friend of mine the other day and the subject of kids and outdoor activities came\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Biking"","block_context":{"text":"Biking","link":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/topics\/general\/biking\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3158,"url":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/a-gratitude-chain\/","url_meta":{"origin":1130,"position":1},"title":"A Gratitude Chain","author":"rockgrrl","date":"August 24, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This bike has been a life saver for me during my stay-at-home \/ shoulder recovery months. At first my shoulder was so bad that even short rides aggravated it but luckily that phase was short and even though I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t climb I could at least ride. I got this bike\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Biking"","block_context":{"text":"Biking","link":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/topics\/general\/biking\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/rgadmin\/rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/61FF72DC-3589-4DEA-9CB3-6ECA5D1D331D.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":249,"url":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/costa-rica-trip-report\/","url_meta":{"origin":1130,"position":2},"title":"Costa Rica Trip Report","author":"Eileen Ringwald","date":"May 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Why would a climbing couple go to Costa Rica you ask? Well even though we are both climbers, one of us (\"him\" she gestures with a thumb) had scheduled arthroscopic knee surgery a month before the wedding and another (\"her\" he gestures with his head) wanted to do something a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/topics\/photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1565,"url":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/flow-do-you-get-it-from-your-sport-activity\/","url_meta":{"origin":1130,"position":3},"title":"Flow – Do You Get it From Your Sport \/ Activity?","author":"Eileen Ringwald","date":"February 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I have so many posts to write but I went to the Banff Mountain Film Festival last night and wrote a short bit, which I thought I'd share... Just came back from watching the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Santa Barbara. There were six films featured, one about biking (mountain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/topics\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/rgadmin\/rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/_mg_7733cr2-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1661,"url":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/what-is-planetgear-win-a-30-shopping-credit\/","url_meta":{"origin":1130,"position":4},"title":"What is PlanetGear? Win a $30 Shopping Credit","author":"Eileen Ringwald","date":"May 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"PlanetGear is another limited time, deep discount (up to 70% off), shopping site for outdoor folks. They operate on the membership model where you must be a member to join,\u00c2\u00a0but you can relax, membership simply means that you have created a free account with them. According to their site they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Contests & Give-Aways"","block_context":{"text":"Contests & Give-Aways","link":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/topics\/contests-give-aways\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3220,"url":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/try-hard\/","url_meta":{"origin":1130,"position":5},"title":"Try Hard","author":"Eileen Ringwald","date":"January 4, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"A story of trying hard whether it's on top rope or a first ascent and climbing during the pandemic,","rel":"","context":"In "Climbing Trips"","block_context":{"text":"Climbing Trips","link":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/topics\/climbingtrip\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/rgadmin\/rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_3566-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1150,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/photo_051910_003-300x240.jpg?resize=300%2C240\" "\\"Ben\\"")
<\/a>![\"Bob](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rockgrrl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/photo_051910_002-300x240.jpg?resize=300%2C240\" "\\"Bob\\"")
<\/a>