Well I did it, took the mountain bike out for a spin, a roughly 18.5 km loop around McKenzie Towne, McKenzie Lake, Cranston, and Auburn Bay, all communities near which I live. While using the MapMyRide app, I tried my darnedest to make sure I resumed my ride after any pauses ‘cuz you know, gotta take breaks and pictures, and whatnot. Looks like the last leg of my ride didn’t record, so had to use Google to figure out the remaining distance. Guess I’ll try auto pause next time and see how that goes.
So I gotta say, I haven’t been on my bike in eons, other than briefly at the end of last summer to see how things went. At that time, I was reminded of how awful my seat was, a very slim racing style seat that gave me lots of pain in the butt (literally!) even when wearing padded bike shorts. My bike is probably 25-ish years old, and while not used a 
ton, I figured I’d take it in for a tune-up (last Fall) just to make sure everything was still in decent working order. I also told the technician I wanted a different seat! And not a huge one either, hopefully one that would be more comfortable without sacrificing the style of my bike. And OH. MY. GOD!!! I went to Mountain Equipment Co-op, and the tech recommended what appeared to be just a basic MEC branded bike seat, not too big and apparently more suited for the female gender than what I had currently. Today was the first day I tried it out and WOW!!! It was so amazingly comfortable!! Like night and day compared to my old seat!! I did prepare a bit though, I’ve been doing some spin classes to literally try and get my butt in gear, it may have made a difference but I do believe this new seat I got is way nicer on the tooshie, definitely nicer than the old seat, regardless of what shape I’m in. I didn’t even wear the padded shorts!
Below is some of the scenery along the way, including the Bow River and the McKenzie Lake Golf Course off in the distance. The bridge I didn’t actually go over, that way led over the Bow and further into Fish Creek Park which now that I know it’s there, can be another adventure:
And yours truly along the Bow River:
Maybe next time I’ll take a picture of my actual bike!
