First ride#

Thu May 9 17:16:47 2024

Yesterday I went out for my first ride not counting riding home from the dealership.

tl;dr didn't drop it didn't crash, so it met the basic success criteria. But not an unalloyed pleasure.

For the longer-form report ... the plan was to go to a garden centre about 20 miles from home and buy a coffee to sit in the sunshine with. I perhaps foolishly decided to try navigation using Kurviger. Foolish (1) because Kurviger's idea of a "curvy" route in London turns out to be a route that eschews all major thoroughfares in favour of 20mph residential roads, and foolish (2) because Kurviger "Follow mode" is not terribly (at all) clear on a smartphone screen when the sun's shining directly on it.

I spent 20-30 minutes riding around Chingford and South Woodford before deciding I was lost enough to stop and look at the map properly, and when I did, I appeared to be on a long straight road that would have passed under the A406 (London's "North Circular Road") and rejoined the route. So I set off again Unfortunately, when I reached the A406 it turned out to be not a bridge but an on-ramp. Downside: I was now pointing in the wrong direction; upside: I knew exactly where I was and it was about 5 minutes from home. So I went home and had a coffee in the sunshine there instead.

Lessons learned: get some miles from home before engaging wiggle mode.