Let the good times roll

While most of our time in Ireland last month was spent with my husband's family, we did manage to reserve a few hours of one day to rent bikes in Dublin's enormous patch of open space, Phoenix Park. Our daughter chose to join her cousins on an open-top bus tour of Dublin instead, as she didn't feel her left foot was ready for cycling just yet.


Phoenix Park Bike Hire had a steady stream of customers that Monday afternoon, with a group ahead of us leaving on bikes and two more groups waiting behind us. I was happy to be handed a ladylike step-through framed Giant Expression (possibly the one ridden by Beyonce - see the photo on their website) with a bag on the rack to hold our belongings.
My husband was given an "ugly mountain bike" with a laugh from the friendly bike man.
Eager to be on our way and away from the crowd, we rode up the street into the park and hoped the darkening clouds would hold their rain for just a little while longer. They obliged, and I was grateful for their presence by the end, as it was warm enough without the sun beating down on us. The constant presence of the dramatic clouds above the smooth green fields made for a beautiful landscape throughout our ride.

As my husband is accustomed to riding alone at a moderately high speed for exercise purposes, our ride together didn't turn out to be the relaxed, romantic pedal through the park that I had envisioned. Instead, I struggled to stay close behind him and gave up on the idea of conversation until we stopped for a brief rest. Perhaps the presence of my camera on video mode kept him on the run. I recorded about 35 minutes of our 90 minute ride and chopped it up into this 3 minute video.

The Green Fields of Dublin from BIKE Lite on Vimeo.

I have no idea how much of the park we actually covered, but it seemed like we saw most of it. The majority of the park has a separated bike path, and the on-street bike lanes we encountered were comfortably wide with light traffic, although we did see three cars parked in the bike lane (try to spot them in the video).

Our bike ride through Phoenix Park was one of the highlights for me, and I'm sure we will make it a regular feature of our future visits. Hopefully next time our daughter will accompany us and keep the pace at a more comfortable level for conversation. She might even smile for the camera.

Watch out, the world's behind you!

It's been a few months since I last made a video while riding my bike, so I thought I'd give it another try on Sunday morning. This time I used the tiny Nikon Coolpix L18 instead of our large, heavy Canon PowerShot S5 IS.

Sunday Morning from BIKE Lite on Vimeo.

I didn't feel quite as comfortable this time, due to the new camera (trying to find the right buttons on the fly), more cars passing us than usual on these normally quiet streets, and trying to maneuver around the melting ice patches and pedestrians. But it did add a little thrill to the ride and made me look forward to trying it again.

Are you traveling for business or pleasure?

It’s been a weekend of weather extremes here. On Friday evening we headed over to our favorite hill for some long overdue sledding fun.

Most of the six inches of powdery snow still remained since temperatures had stayed near the freezing mark all week. By Saturday morning, the mud was beginning to peek through the snow as some kids tried to squeeze in a few last rides before the warmer afternoon arrived. The big meltdown must have started late Saturday night, as the temperature had already reached 59°F by 9:00 a.m. Sunday. Since I had a lunch date in the afternoon, we took our bikes out after breakfast for a ride through a nearby neighborhood. My daughter took a few photos of some of the beautiful houses there.


The streets were streaming with water from the rapidly melting snow, and my daughter quickly acquired a spatter stripe up her back, thanks to her missing rear fender. Good thing she wasn’t wearing her cycle-chic-best, since we had rushed out the door. After I returned from lunch, the weather was still beautiful and warm, and I needed to make amends for ordering the more-dessert-than-lunch Pineapple Rum French Toast with Crème Anglaise. So we decided to take care of some business by bike and deliver an order of Girl Scout cookies to my sister less than a mile away.

I may need to make a few more business-paced rides to work off that plateful of pleasure, and it looks like the weather might help out by staying in the 40s and 50s all week.