BIKE KC

The Bike Share has come to downtown Kansas City. A program patterned after a concept used in several European cities where people can rent a bike at lone local and drop it off at another station. This location is just behind where I work and as you can see from this picture during the lunch hour that a number of the units are in use. They were refilling the station as I arrived at work, so I know these were checked out since just before 8 AM. They are kind of ugly bikes to be honest but they have 3 speeds and yes that is a basket up front. But these are not sporting bikes, they are intended for functionality so I guess their looks are okay.

It's a really cool concept and I do intend to take one of my two helmets to work and leave it there. If the weather drops below the 3 digit range anytime soon, I'll probably take a spin over a lunch hour.

Kansas City will be getting a lot of national attention during the All-Star break and I'm glad they got these up and running last week.

So if you encountered one of these stations on a visit to Kansas City would you take advantage of the to hop around town?

Started biking - slowly but surely

A few weeks ago my right knee swelled up with a big knot on the lower inside of the knee cap. As it happened I was planning to get my bike out and start ridding for exercise. The knee thing drug on and I went to the doctors and between my two options started an inflammatory medication.  The other option was a cortisone shot which might have brought me swifter relief but since I'm a type two diabetic, my experience with any steroid is that it bumps my blood sugar numbers pretty high for a significant number of days.

But all this (the knee problem) seems past.  At least enough so that I got out by bike and aired up the tires and rode around a little (not to overdo it) and my plan is to ride some most nights after work for a while till I can build up my endurance.

Just so that I'm able to get a poetry connection in here, long time readers may recall that I won my bike a few years back in a contest to write environmental haiku's.