Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog inspired by bike riding, mostly on the Neuse River Greenway trail in Raleigh. I hope you enjoy my musings about riding (the good and the bad) as well as some of the thoughts that occur to me while I'm riding, which range from the mundane to the off the wall to the truly bizarre. I enjoy biking very much and regularly bore my friends with stories from my rides. Some of them seem interested (or, more likely, they're just tired of listening to me) and have suggested creating a blog for the stories. Hence, the Writing Rider.

Biking as an adult began for me several years ago when I rode a bike while on vacation at Holden Beach. The house where we were staying had an old but serviceable bike I rode to the store to get the Raleigh newspaper each morning. It was a great way to start the day. The following Christmas I received a bike as a gift. As the weather allowed I rode it around my subdivision, going maybe 2-3 miles each time. All I remember is huffing and puffing up the hills and being very sore afterward.

In addition to biking, I'm a regular at the Planet Fitness at the shopping center at the top of my neighborhood. Bad knees limit my cardio to the stationary bike, and one day at the gym I was grimly pedaling away, watching ESPN. I remember thinking, "Man, I wish I could ride my bike up here." There was a pause -- you could almost here a voiceover saying "wait for it" -- and I thought, why not? It's only a little more than 2 miles from my house. So weather permitting, I began riding my bike to the gym. It didn't take long before I had to double back and circle through my subdivision several times to get any exercise. Soon after that I began riding to do errands.

My neighborhood has several short walking trails that go between rows of houses. One of them runs by a little creek. I would regularly take those trails on the way to the gym and they were my favorite part of the ride. About that time I heard about the Neuse River Greenway. The first time I found it I could only go about three miles on it because it was still under construction. Now I go 20-30-40 miles at a time. Last year (2014) I rode more than 2,700 miles. That gives me a lot of time to think. I look forward to sharing some of those thoughts with you.