It’s beginning to wear on me, this life thing. The Corona Virus, of course, limiting the range I can roam on my bike. The Corona Virus, of course, dramatically changing the way we do business at the shop. And that life thing that gets to you, being 64, and in the old days age was enough by itself to get you thinking about things better not thought of, but now you have the Corona Virus telling everyone to think that way. So, one of those rare days where sure, I did feel better at the end of the ride than the beginning, but would have been nice to feel the usual positive emotions along the way.

OK, the details. Just me; Kevin hadn’t slept well, and this really wasn’t a great morning for it to be just me. As the prior paragraph implies, I was in kind of a dark place. It did give me an excuse to stop and take photos along the way, since I was clearly in no hurry to get up the hill. That was apparent at the first timing point, hitting it right at 4 minutes vs 3 minutes, 30 seconds, just two days prior. And it got worse from there. Maybe Sunday’s ride, in the rain, will go better.

An interesting day to be sure. One of those very rare days in which I was feeling a lot better than my son, with two other witnesses seeing it (“pilot” Kevin & Karen). I was doing much better up Kings than anytime recently, and got a huge gap on Kevin such that, at the wide-open clearing spot, I decided to circle back a bit and make sure he was OK. He was almost two minutes behind at that point; had I kept going, I probably would have been just under 30 minutes.

But the bigger news came a bit earlier today. Just heard it an hour or so ago. We knew the stay-at-home order would be extended. But what we thought were clarifications on the extension? Not the case. The new order is not an extension; it’s a far more draconian effort to keep people from leaving their homes. It includes a 5 mile radius (described as distance from your home) outside of which you are not allowed to walk, run, hike or… bike. That’s right, a ride to Skyline for 99.9% of us is illegal. A ride to the coast, out of the question. A ride anywhere that you might want to get on shorts, a jersey and cycling shoes… is not allowed. Basically, if you see anyone looking like a “cyclist” and not a commuter, odds are, they are not legal.

This is interesting. I’ve asked for clarification, noting the huge difference in considering a 5 mile run as an essential activity for maintaining health, vs a 5 mile bike ride. Maintenance of health via exercise is considered an essential activity. But they’ve made it pretty much impossible to do so by bike.

Guess we’re going to be selling a lot more trainers.