New horizons...

I've had my magnificent electric steed for almost a year now. It has definitely exceeded expectations! I use it frequently to go to the local shop, I've been to parties, gigs, social visits etc, but all, so far, within a few miles of home.
This week, I finally got me and my bike on a train and went all the way to play at a wedding in Cumbria (with quite a lot of help from my husband/partner in grime).
If you take a bike on a train you have to book it in advance, as there are pitiful few bike spaces on British trains. I also booked some disability assistance, as the journey was to involve a quick change with a race across the station at Wolverhampton.
Mostly the help was good and mostly someone was there to meet us. The staff we met on the way were as helpful as they could possibly be, but all train journeys seem to have their quota of chaos that nobody can control, but helpful fellow passengers filled the gaps in moments of struggle.

We had beautiful, hilly and windy 10 mile ride out from Penrith railway station. We got a little lost, but it was sunny and we found a magnificent stone circle to stop for a pit stop.
The hills were pretty relentless, but nothing my magic bike couldn't handle!  The worst bits were due to operator error,  like clunking into a wrong gear by mistake and my foot-droppy foot being jolted off the pedal...I'm still not good at uphill starts, especially when I'm feeling a bit fatigued, but I'm getting better at my gear control, and I do my best to only stop when I can roll start!
This is the most intrepid adventure so far, and it taught me a good deal about how far I can push myself and my bike! It was the first time I was really mindful of conserving my battery. I did far more miles on the lowest "Eco" setting than I thought I'd manage!
And now I'm at home,  having barely moved all day! Exhausted, but feeling on top of the world! Doing crazy stupid things like this every now and then does my soul the world of good! It makes me feel like a champion!  I spend a lot of my days living with limitations, which is OK,  but it is so nourishing and encouraging to take on a physically daunting challenge and rise to it!
Onwards and upwards!  :)

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Wild rides by white water

Yesterday I went on an epic adventure!
There was a party in the hills, 10 miles away, up a steep forestry track. The weather has been awful, with gales and torrential rain. My car broke down the day before (dead alternator) so there was no chance of driving there. Even if I had ventured there in a car I would have had to go home again, as I would have had to  face the prospect of a long walk from where cars could park uphill to the party.
Anyway, the weather broke yesterday evening, the rain reduced to an occasional drizzly shower, and the wind dropped from blowing a gale to breezy with gusts, so I decided I wanted to go for it on my magic bike! So we togged up, packed plenty of warm clothes and rode off into the night....
The road up to the party was very steep, very narrow, full of  flooded potholes and littered  with lumpy tree debris from the recently mellowed storm. A river runs alongside the road, and it was a raging whitewater torrent! In some places you had waterfalls on one side of the road running under the road to join the river..it was like one of those crazy film studio rides!
We made it to the party, and even after such an epic and crazy ride, I still had energy to dance and party til the early hours. I saw quite a few folks I haven't seen for ages, and and actually I got quite overwhelmed and emotional  (a couple of mohitas down). It struck me how I've spent more social time with my "field family" up and down the country than I have with people closer to home,  just due to the logistics of dealing with my fatigue.  I felt blown away and overjoyed. Like another layer of my chrysalis cocoon being sloughed off....God I love my bike!

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....the adventure begins

Back home from my first proper Ebike  ride.... looking for a party on the beach that seems to have blown away in the howling wind. ..a crazy, exhilarating, wet ,windy and wild ride, headwind all the way there, and a crosswind to blow cobwebs away.....ending up with a micro party under a beautiful hazy moon.

I sure know how to chuck myself in at the deep end! We meant to set off in daylight, but by the time we were ready it was dark.....and somehow I'd knocked the little spoke sensor that tells the onboard computer how fast you're going, so the computer was throwing up error messages, and telling me I was doing 50 km/hr! Despite the error messages the bike did what it was supposed to do and was amazing! I had to keep myself from pushing too much as I didn't want to leave my other half behind!

I found myself actually saying thank you to the amazing little motor as it glided up hills that have had me struggling  and pushing myself to the limit!  ...I still need to work on my own courage levels;  some of the off road stuff was about at the edge of my scaredy cat levels. ..but feeling that extra push from the bike totally helped me get through some tricky terrain (very stony beach, lumpy tracks, big puddles, it even helped to push itself up the steps to our house on "walk" mode)...what a clever beast!...it felt like I had got on a thundering cart horse  after only riding ponies before...only just in control sometimes, but I can feel it's capability totally outstrips mine at the moment

The start of a beautiful relationship....

❤

  **update..this was on Friday. We went back out on Saturday night and found the party, exactly where it should be. The weather was the complete opposite of the night before. Cold and calm. We partied til 4am, then padded home easily in the first whisps of a rising sea mist. I caught hundreds of sticky strands of cobwebs on my face, and across the front of my bike as we rode. They were beautiful, sparkling and shimmering in the lights of the bike. I tried to take a pic but it was one of those ephemeral beauties that you just had to be there to enjoy, and for the first time in a very long time, I was there to see it

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First impressions

I've just collected my new Ebike, and I wanted to record my first impressions.....wow wow WOW!
I haven't had much of a go, as it was nearly 6pm by the time I left the shop, but I was rendered speechless with the first push on the pedal! I only got 100 yards before I had to stop and catch my breath!
Just wow!  That's all I can say  right now! I had a little spin when we got home and normally getting up our steep  drive is hard and I only make it about one in five attempts. ...I just breezed up there without changing gear or even getting out of breath!
I normally feel like a hero at the top of our drive if I make it to the top...I am going to have to up my game if I want to feel heroic at the end of a ride maybe...
:D
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On the brink of a revolution

I am on the brink of, hopefully, a revolution!
I have just been awarded a grant from the MS Society. (* I just can't get that link to work! :/ ...here's  the website.. mssociety.org.uk) They helped hugely towards most of the cost of a shiny new Ebike!
 It's currently still in the tender care of the Summit Cycles workshop in Aberystwyth for the final build and tweak, then the adventure begins!
 I have high hopes for this modern marvel of a contraption....... It will be like 3 of me pedalling if I put it to the highest help setting, which I hope will mean I will have restored some of my previous bikability!
 I come from a bikey kind of household, and before my MS kicked my butt, we used to go on cycle adventures, like  pedalling 40 miles to get to festies in the mud (much easier than trying to get a car or van on/off site when it's a quagmire!), and wild camping by glittering moonlit lakes, drinking whiskey round a campfire, and getting eating alive by midges! Happy days! :)
I have worked at getting and maintaining a level of fitness that means I am still able to pedal a mile to the nearest shop/bus stop, but the Ebike will hopefully enable me to go much further, without the fear, and likelihood of flaking out before I'm there. I'm so excited! I can barely wait!

So, I will be posting a bit of what I can and can't do with my shiny new steed, and how it fits into my life. I'm also curious about how other people will deal with a (invisibly) disabled person using a bike for mobility...

Watch this space!

And here's the manufacturer's link in case you're interested.....

My beautiful shiny red bike....

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Wobble a mile in my shoes!

Twice this week I have felt under scrutiny and judgement for my disability. First in a blue badge parking space.....a random geezer walked passed when I was still in the car  shaking his head saying "pretender" repeatedly as he walked past my car!..... I don't know for absolute certain that he was talking to me,  but it seemed that way....but as I wasn't 100 percent sure, I let it go, but it left me feeling a bit rattled.
The second time really stung.....it  was a colleague making a snide "throwaway" comment,  intimating I was getting unfair priveleges at work because of my disability (which is nothing more than being given the sit-down job if there's one avaliable!).
It really makes me feel horrible to think that people are resenting these "priveleges ". These are the things that enable  me to  actually continue working and he made me feel like I'm playing the system. I  felt like packing it all in with work today, for the first time....Even when my relapse was at its peak and I could barely walk at all, I never felt I should quit my job....That one crappy comment struck home with precision. It really got to me. It made me wonder how many of my other colleagues felt the same way....that I'm some kind of freeloader! Im really not! I work really hard, and often I dont even take teabreaks like everyone else because it means having to go upstairs, and It's not worth the bother. I'm sure its not many of them really think I'm playing the system, I'm sure most people get it, that I need a little bit of understanding and acceptance of the positive contribution I can still make, but he has casually sown that seed of doubt in my mind at a time when I'm kind of struggling with figuring out where and how I fit into  the wider scheme of things.

Maybe I'm more fragile than  usual, maybe I'm a bit menopausey!
Maybe he's a snide judgemental selfish git who only speaks for himself.
Maybe it's a combination of all of the above!

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waspy wipeout

I found out something new about my MS at the weekend! Wasp stings makes it flare up! :/ ....I got stung for the first time in years on Friday! It got me right on my spine (luckily I was in our big bell tent, cos you've never seen a dress being whipped off so quickly! Either me or the wasp had to vacate the dress before it got me again!).

About 10 or 15 minutes afterwards  I started getting really drowsy and fatigue was hitting me hard. There were a few other factors as well, like it being damp and a bit chilly, and the fact that I'd started drinking, but only just......I had a feeling it was something to do with the wasp sting, and my dodgy immune system, so I checked it out on the internet, and there do seem to be instances of this happening with other people, even as far as causing relapses!

I was wiped out for most of the weekend, and having some patches of hot leg, which is an old symptom I've not had in a while..and I'm blaming the sting! I am trying to keep things in proportion though, and not let myself get phobic about wasps!