Bicycled Around an Empty Park

1:22 AM (of Saturday, April 25th 2020)

Today is Friday, April 24th 2020 and it's been a pretty normal day so far. I got a bit of work done at work this morning and afternoon, and then this new saddle arrived for my bike which I installed and rode around in. My previous bike saddle was way too uncomfortable, and so I ordered a new one that had this "hole" running across the middle, it looks like this really fancy saddle. I read and saw reviews that these kinds of saddles with the hole were more comfortable. I couldn't verify it since I had never rode in one of these kinds of saddles before, so I ordered one not knowing how'd they feel. I can attest today that they are definitely more comfortable than my previous one which did not have a hole.

Anyway I rode the bike around a few different places today, the main place was this park that was closed off to cars, but it was open to pedestrians and other cyclists. You can tell it's closed off to cars, because there's this road block in front and it says the park is closed. It's one of those road blocks where a giant pole blocks the car, the ones that go up and down like when you are going through a toll booth. Yeah the road was closed with that kind of road block. The sidewalk on the right also had this roadblock available to it too, but it was wide open. From that you can infer the park was closed to cars, but it was open to pedestrians who wanted to bicycle and exercise, so I went through as did many other people.

In fact it's kind of funny how I went in. I just walked to the side of the road block and went right in. A car would not be able to though because of the road block, and I've seen some people drive up to it only to turn around. And here I just walked to the side and entered, hah. Funny enough too, as I was going in, another person was heading out. It's a two lane road so they were on the left side road and I was on the right side since we were going opposite directions, we just went through our respective sides to get in or out, and she greeted me as I nodded my head.

If you just looked at this place from the outside, you would think it was deserted since it was almost dark, there were absolutely no cars anywhere, and it was in nature, but nope. There were a lot of people walking around and a lot of people on bikes. I thought this was my cool little secret place I had discovered, since normally this place is deserted anyway, but now, there's a lot more people just wandering around. By a lot, I mean there were probably a 80 or so people I rode by. There were families of 6 people just walking around. Next time I go by here I'm going to record my encounter on camera, because it's such an eerie sight to see.

Anyway I rode my bike around a lot, and I kept practicing my right turns. I went through the empty parking lots and I just kept making right turns, going around a place, doing a right turn, another right turn, etc, until I got sort of used to it. It was still really hard and really scary to do, but I was getting the hang of it. I explored around a lot, and I went to the deserted areas in the park. Most people were just walking, and so they took the main paths and roads, I took some backroads and other paths that walkers would not dare delve into, and so I didn't encounter anyone in these places. I discovered a bunch of cool new places I had never been before and never knew existed. It felt like a ghost town though, so I eventually went back.

On my way out, I stood in front of the road block entrance, the same place I described earlier where I entered, and I crouched down to take a look at my bike's gears. I had not switched gears ever, because I had no indicator to what gear I was on. I just eyed it and figured that I could just switch and try it out. As I was crouching and looking at the gears another cyclist just went by me. I was so startled because I didn't hear anything, and I was surprised since I saw this rider pass me going the opposite way earlier, and now she just caught up with me.

For some reason I felt like I wanted to race her, and so I walked through the gate on one side as she walked on the other side, and as we got on our bike again, I just bolted for it. I switched to the maximum gear and just flew. I had no idea what speed I was going anything, but it was fast, and my energy expenditure would have been the equivalent of me sprinting on a track. Anyway I made it down to the end of the road first, and when I looked back she wasn't even visible (there was a turn that blocked the view). I did a surprise almost right U-Turn to enter this path on the right, exiting the road because I didn't want to ride with any cars, and that was one of the highlights of this ride to be honest, right after sprinting so hard, to make a right almost U-Turn, I was so pround. When I got to my neighborhood I did a few more right turn practices before going home.

When I got home I was so tired I ended up taking a nap, and then I ate some dinner. I browsed the Internet for bike parts after that, like new bike pedals that you need special shoes to wear, new bike shoes for those bike pedals, and a cycling computer so I could see my speed and have a GPS available on the bike. I also wanted to get a power meter, but these things are so freaking expensive. The cheapest ones are like $800, and any of the used ones on ebay are selling for $300+. There is just no way I can ever afford a power meter right now, but I really want to. I also tuned my bike a bit, because I discovered that both of the wheels were rubbing against their brakes! I already thought I was going pretty fast, but tomorrow I'll go even faster without these brakes rubbing.

Anyway that was my day today.