Off and Riding: An Introduction

I ride a bike quite a bit by most people's standards.  I'm pretty much a plodder. I have three bikes.  My conventional looking touring bike is a Specialized Sequoia from the early 1990s. It weighs a ton, but, then again, so do I; so we're even. I call it The Sequoia, mostly because I lack imagination.

The Sequoia is my oldest bike and has well over 30,000 miles on it.  

Bike number two is my Tour Easy recumbent.  This baby goes by the name of Nellie. It was named when I was riding it down Big Savage Mountain in western Maryland.  When I hit 45 miles per hour, all I could think of was "Whoa, Nellie!!!"  And the name stuck. 

I bought a recumbent because I needed a touring bike and my surgically repaired back is very picky about my bike set up.  Nobody in town had a touring bike that I could test ride so I decided to try recumbents. On the third shopping visit I brought Nellie home from Bikes At Vienna .  Nellie has over 27,000 miles on her. Not too shabby.  She carried me on a few bike tours like this one.

My third bike is Little Nellie, my New World Tourist travel bike. It folds up into a suitcase. A few years back my son and I watched all the James Bond movies. One of my favorites is "You Only Live Twice" in which Bond (played by Sean Connery ) needs to do a recon mission of a mysterious compound in a volcano. He calls back to England and says, "Tell Q, send Little Nellie."  Q's Little Nellie is a kit helicopter.  After he assembles it, Connery takes to the air in a goofy looking helmet and gets into a dogfight.

 I don't do dogfights. Little Nellie is a baby with only about 5,000 miles on her.

I often bike commute. Many people at work think it's amazing that a 55-year old man can ride 14 or 15 miles per day to work.  I think it's amazing (and a bit depressing) how many 45-year olds can't.