Sunday, May 14, 2017

Biker hounds

Kili and I added a new activity to our repertoire 2 summers ago - biking.

I hadn't had a bike in probably 10 years. I loved to bike as a kid, but I outgrew my bike when I was a teenager and didn't replace it because I had started to have a weird knee issue whenever I rode. My doctor tells me that a lot of women have irregularly shaped knee caps, so this might be the cause. When I ride a bike, if my knee doesn't straighten at the bottom of the cycle it starts to "lock". I'm not sure how else to describe it. It doesn't hurt but it is very uncomfortable and makes riding unpleasant. I would have to stop every couple of rounds and shake my knee to "loosen" it, and if I didn't it would get to a point where it couldn't get any tighter and would "crack". And then the whole thing would start again. As a result, I haven't really ridden a bike in quite a long time.


I finally bit the bullet and went down to the bike shop in town. I thought perhaps if I had a bike that was fitted to me properly, maybe my knees wouldn't be such a problem. Success! I do still feel a bit of it when I ride, especially on hills, but with the right sized bike adjusted so that my legs can totally straighten while I'm riding... I'm actually able to enjoy biking! I am so excited!

Kili and I love to go out to a big dog friendly park in Edmonton and hit the trails.



I also purchased a "Cycleash" attachment for the bike so that Kili and I can bike safely inside the city as well. She doesn't love this quite as much as she's always preferred to run at a varied pace, however she does seem to prefer jogging with the bike over jogging with me running. This may be the difference in pace since the bike is faster. Kenna also recently started joining me for jogs and bike rides, and she's really enjoying it. I am slowly trying to build endurance on both girls, though Kenna does seem to have more of a natural knack for distance. Here we are demonstrating our Cycleash attachment. In theory I can attach a second bar on the other side for a second dog, however I haven't been able to buy the arm attachment only, and anyway I'm not ready to have a dog on each side as I still check in on them a lot right now which sometimes results in the bike drifting a bit.



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