Clearly getting the elliptical trainer was a good idea, and I set the bike aside for a while and worked on getting my heart rate down to a reasonable level, by exercising more frequently but for less time and with less effort. I'm finally to the point where I have to work to maintain 140 beats per minute or so rather than having to hold back. So I'm ready to start bicycling, again, but I don't yet have anything that will measure my heart rate while I ride. I went to "The Bike Source", yesterday, or rather to where The Bike Source used to be and found that it was closed. That was disappointing. But I had my handy Garmin iQue 3600 with me, along with some Map Source data loaded onto it, and I asked it to find stores with the words "bike" or "bicycle" the names, and let the iQue guide me to two of them. I couldn't find either of the additional two stores it claimed where there. Oh, well, I suppose Map Source data has the same chance of being out of date as the phone book. I was tired of looking for bike stuff after having just left work, and the other places it pointed me too were rather far away, so I have up.
I felt like I could have ridden 20 miles, but I really want to be careful not to fall into the same old habits again. I'll wait until I have some sort of heart rate monitor before I ride much more than 10 miles. Maybe I can still get out, this weekend, and get one.
Adrian
