"The best revenge is not to do as they do." - Marcus Aurelius
Below: Self-deception.
It's not just about getting a bike - there is a bunch of other stuff to consider.
I'm having to re-learn a few facts about bicycling the hard way, and a few new things as well. One thing I'm having to re-learn is that my butt isn't up to dealing with a hard-tail mountain bike on frozen soil. It's like riding for miles on a concrete washboard road. I've countered this problem with a springy seat-post and some padded cycling shorts. The old 32 inch waist shorts are probably in a box somewhere, but odds are pretty good that even spandex doesn't stretch that much!
A new thing that I'm having to take into consideration is the weather. When I was last cycling routinely, it was in the California high desert. The only thing that might change during a ride was the direction of the wind - and even that was unlikely. You might need a windbreaker jacket at the start of a ride when you weren't warmed up, but that would be about it. You almost never had to deal with rain - you just stayed indoors when the weather was bad. The weather would always clear up again in a few day's time.
That's no longer the case - there are four legit seasons here, and you have to be prepared for the weather. You have winter clothes and summer clothes. You have winter tires and summer tires. You have a lot of chores that go with the seasons, and you don't have the luxury of shrugging off cold weather when you go outdoors, because it isn't mild cold.
So since I'll be outdoors for long periods now, I'm using ear-warmers, ski gloves, and sweatshirts (all of which I had). Plus a never-before-needed fleece-lined jacket and windbreaker pants.
Heart rate is another thing that I've been watching for the past couple of years during exercise. It's an enormous help with pacing - I'm able to continue quite a long time by keeping things below 160-ish. In the past, I'd just go hard until I felt sick - by which time it was too late to avoid crapping out and catching my breath again and letting the heart wind down a bit.
Anyway, I've become a huge fan of Heart Rate Monitors (HRMs). I keep an old model HRM at work, and a couple more at home. They were cheap purchases from online auctions. However, all of them require you to read a wrist display, and I'm not taking my hand off the handlebar to look at a wrist band while dealing with a dirt trail. Don't need medical bills on top of the other ones.
So I picked up a (wireless!!!) bike computer that can connect with a heart monitor via Bluetooth or Ant+ and a heart monitor transmitter that can talk to it.
The Masi can do without a computer, because it's not going to be a regular rider. Strava and an old Polar heart monitor will work well enough for that.
Lastly, I broke down and got a new lid. There's not a lot going on upstairs anymore, but there's no point being more of a veg than I already am :)
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