Poppies were—perhaps still are—a symbol of veterans, worn on Armistice Day in remembrance of the appalling slaughter that took place in the fields of Flanders during WWI; in fact one of Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Whimsy mysteries turns on these flowers. They aren't much associated with Memorial Day here, which of course was last weekend. Currently in Michigan, they're in full spate, and as I rode along on my first real ride of the year, I thought about my father, who was a veteran, and like me was known for complaining bitterly about bike seat discomfort.
I liked the way the orange contrasted with the pink Dames’ Rocket, which is also at its peak.
Getting back on a bike after a several month hiatus always brings a feeling of dread. Granted, I'd ridden a little, and granted I had a good ‘base’ from all the riding I did last year to prep for Vietnam. Despite the fact I'd done well with a ride some 2 weeks ago—a 26 mile round trip to visit a friend and first over 10 miles in months—I wondered how I'd cope after deciding to do the AABTS sunrise ride, which including the trip to and from the start point was almost 40 miles.
Frankly I expected to be in fairly serious pain. Hardening up the rear has always been a major chore for me—as it was for my father, who tried every weird and wacky bike seat known to man before finally getting a fully suspended mountain bike, which according to my mom solved the problem. However, I made a rather interesting discovery. —I had expected the yoga I've been practicing for the past 5 months to help with the knees, given its emphasis on strengthening the inner quads, (weak medialis obliques are evidently a frequent culprit in knee pain, as in my case) and possibly the aching neck and sore wrists. What I didn't expect was the increased flexibility throughout the hips would help with the sore butt.
But that's the only way I can account for the fact that not only did I ride without much pain (though to be sure the greater leg strength meant they instead of my bottom was supporting more of my overall weight) but that I was willing to get on a bike later the same day to go to a giant neighborhood garage sale. Huh.
I discovered, after lifting weights, that it made everyday life, such as housework, easier. The yoga has added flexibility on top of the strength training, along with a significant component of aerobic training, and it's improved my quality of life even more than the weights did, and in ways that I never expected. Unlike the author of my reference book (Cheryl Bender Birch's Power Yoga) I don't think ashtanga yoga is the be-all and end-all for everyone.
But it's surely been a wonderful boon for me.
I couldn't help wondering, as I rode along fields of poppies, if my dad had been more flexible (he was worse than I was, and we have the same gait, and thus, I suspect, similar hip geometry) whether it would've helped with his cycling.
These pictures were of two sets of poppies—some singles, and, later on, a different batch of doubles.
Needless to say I love early morning light. These first two pix were shot around 1/30 sec. Worth even the threat of poison ivy (I think I lucked out, and managed not to get any of it on me.)
By the time I got to the doubles, the light was significantly brighter, just on the edge of being too harsh, and I was shooting as high as 1/250th (need to learn to look up that info—it's now encoded in the picture itself, instead of being in a separate file.)
Closeup. I'm really happy with these pictures—I didn't do any post-processing to any of them—no cropping, no brightening, just scaling to fit the website. To be sure, they're a little on the yellow side—I did bracket the exposure while taking the pictures, but haven't gotten efficient at bracketing the white balance yet. And the autofocus was behaving nicely, which it often doesn't.
Glorious light, cool temperatures, many deer sightings and these wonderful flowers were my reward for getting out of bed at 5am. Shot roughly between 8 and 9am with a nikon coolpix8400 along Huron River Drive between Ann Arbor and Dexter 04jun06.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
