Blue bumps and bike rides...

Do you know what this is? 

I call it a 'crotch-grenade' because of how it feels to hit one when you are riding your bike.

I must've hit at least a dozen the other night when I was riding my bike around my development in the dark. Oh, correction... eleven. There are eleven of these on the little loop I ride inside The Gate. But I didn't hit every single one on every single lap... so maybe I did hit a dozen... 

They are small. So small that you probably couldn't run over one if you tried. But in the dark, the laws of chance... or something... take over and 

*BAM*

there it is.

You all probably already knew what those blue things are for... my husband had to teach me.

They are in the road to show where the fire hydrants are! 

Whew...

So they do serve a purpose other than to split my pelvis in two. A purpose that serves the safety of the whole community. And we are so gosh darn lucky to have ELEVEN of them to serve our little hamlet. Okay... I can handle taking a couple of hits for the team.

Yesterday, I ventured off the compound to ride "in the wild" before the sun had set. I asked Big G if he wanted to join me... he unexpectedly said "yes". Mother/son training ride... I knew better than to have any sort of illusions about that! I know my son.

As he was lagging five minutes into it, I decided to make the "togetherness" portion a brief warm-up... 'cuz I am smart... even if I didn't know about those blue things.

He and I tooled around the trail, chatting about the weather and the scenery for about 15 minutes. Then I dropped him at home and went off for another 35 minutes of my regular steady-state, cross-training cycling... in shoes and pants. As it is a pedestrian/biking trail, there are NO blue bumps! I do think it is time to properly inflate my back tire though. While sounding like a swarm of angry hornets makes an excellent warning device while riding, I can't help but think that proper inflation would not only be better for the tire, but I will probably go so much faster!

But maybe the molasses-y feeling of the low tire is helping in a strength-training sort of way? And I also start thinking about how much more painful the bumps will feel if the tire is hard.

It is a dilemma...