Hi there from Lockdown!
We are entertaining ourselves by keeping an eye on your orders, and reading the discussions on social media about what constitutes responsible outdoor exercise.
Our leaders gave us guidelines for our first month of home time, and added that we may go outside to exercise, provided we stay in our bubble and keep it local.
One side effect of this is that people who haven’t exercised since 1997 have understood the exercise clause to be an order, and bubbles are out in force.
The other is the argument about what constitutes ‘local’. You might as well ask how long is a piece of string.
Five days in, we are looking for other ways to divert ourselves safely.
Here are five activities that work for us:
Plot routes!
We love maps. Looking at them, drawing them, forgetting to bring them. Using your phone, tablet, or your imagination, make plans to go places. Write the plans down. Annotate with coordinates. Dream big (it takes longer).
Clean a bike!
Pick one from your fleet, or grab the only one you own, and give it a thorough fettling. Remember not to open any cans of worms: spare parts may be hard to come by, so don’t start messing with anything that might need replacing. Work within your skillset. If you are not familiar with a certain region of your beloved, don’t dismantle it. Bike shops may be closed, and your mechanic may not make house calls.
Dick around with a bike!
If you are blessed/cursed with more than one bike, modify one! Hot rodding one of your fleet may not make it go any better, in fact unless you work faster than me you may find that by the time you have effected your tune-ups the rules have changed and you are not allowed back in the house. But one of your rigs will lurk in the shed, with different tyres, swapped handlebars - maybe even a new colour! And you can look at it whenever you like.
Binge watch bike movies!
YouTube is a gigantic time-vampire, and floating in its bubbling vat of video are marvels like “A Sunday In Hell”. If you are not into vintage bike race movies how about a two-hour doco about the history of the bicycle? It gets good reviews, but not from us - we haven’t reached that level of inactivity yet.
Binge reading!
Eyes gone square from looking at the TV or staring out the window? Read a book! Finding that a bit soporific after three or four hours? Try reading two at once! Our current duo is a mystery taking place at Los Alamos during World War 2, and a non-fiction about the whale, and the industry of hunting them. Alternating chapters is the most confusing thing we have done since we last dicked around with a bike - it really sharpens the mind and turns two interesting stories into one incomprehensible epic.