Well, dangit...

Kinekt seat post, super comfy

I swapped out the seat post and saddle on the gray bike (I'm not really sure I can call it a hybrid anymore, I've changed enough that it's more like a city bike) and adjusted the post height, hoping that would ease the knee pain, but... nope. I did two miles and it hurt from start to finish. I went home and grabbed the Townie, and did another 10 with zero pain.

So, I dunno.

I'm going to put the old seat post and stock saddle back on, wear some bike shorts, and then see what happens. I'm struggling to remember if I had as much pain before I changed the seat; I only remember that I changed it because my asterisk hated it and I'm not thrilled with having to change into bike shorts before a ride.

Cripes, I've only had it for three or four months. I should remember.

It shouldn't matter, really. I like the Townie, but it is slower. I don't really care about that if I'm just headed out for groceries and the like, but for a dedicated fitness ride, I'd like to be faster. Yesterday's 12.5 miles took an hour and fifteen minutes, which is only about 10 minutes longer, but still. I felt slow, and I struggled to get my heart rate up. I averaged 122bpm; on the hybrid I average 10-12 higher.

I shoot for a 500 calorie burn. If I'm going to spend an extra fifteen minutes in the saddle, I kind of want an extra fifteen minutes worth of burn.

Logically, I'm not sure why I want to be faster. I'm having fun, I enjoy the ride, and that's the important thing. But I'm four months into a plateau, I don't think I can cut my calories any further--I'm already at 1200-1300--but I also don't think I can spend that much more time on the bike every day.

This would be nice...

A friend advised I get back in the pool to mix things up, but the only pools are a town away and historically, after a few weeks, I start loathing the drive out there. And I have a perfectly good treadmill at home, and a killer rowing machine...I should make better use of those before joining another gym.

Now, ideally, a pool in the back yard would be nice, but I don't see that happening for a while.

Soon, probably next week or the week after, we're moving stuff around the house so that the treadmill and rowing machine are in the otherwise unused living room, or even where my office currently is. The problem with those being in the spare bedroom is that it's easy to forget that they're even in the house, and it doesn't help that the room is hot and gets hotter when someone is working out.

But damn. I have to figure out something to break this plateau. I honestly thought that by now I would be very close to my goal weight, but I'm so far off it's discouraging.

And I know, this is about being healthy and not focusing so much on my weight. I'm doing pretty freaking good at the eating better and exercising well, but I'm not happy with my weight still. I'm not comfortable. Were I comfortable, I think I'd be happy with it.

And fuck it, I just want to wear a tight t-shirt and not feel all self-conscious about it.

 And apropos to nothing...I was going to take that cup holder off because none of the lidded cups I had fit it well enough. Then yesterday as I locked up at Starbucks, one of the regulars was getting out of her car and stopped to ask about the new bike and was geeking over it. She's quite a bit older and loved the crank forward position, the idea of being able to get her feet down at a stop.

In talking I mentioned taking the cup holder off, and why, and she told me to wait. She was inside the store for a couple of minutes and came out with this cup and told me to try that out. And it fit perfectly. And damned if she hadn't bought it for me, and had the barista rinse it out so that I could pour my tea into it.

So I'm keeping the holder for now, because I seriously enjoyed the ride home having the cup right there.

It's the little things...