Bikes. Without the engine.

Today is the second real ‘full’ day of our holidays. The first real day was spent recovering by the side of the pool and generally chilling. Followed by dinner out at Bayside Wharf.

Bayside Wharf is surprisingly like a mini theme village, all by the waterside and marginally ‘twee’. The main tourist season is about to start with Spring break at the end of this week. All hell is about to break loose apparently. I guess booking a table for dinner will be essential.

In the meantime, proper holiday, day 2. We decided that we would go and explore the beach. If we went by car, it would be a 5 minute drive from one end of the resort to the other. Walking? About 30 minutes. Sod that, let’s go and investigate the free bikes.

Off we go, about a 15 minute walk to collect the bikes. Getting a bike suitable for 1) my short legs and 2) being able to pedal / bend said legs proved to be challenging.

After 5 different bikes, hey presto! There we go.

Now, understand this…. Sandestin is pretty flat. These are not in the slightest high tech bikes. Go…. Pedal. Stop…. Pedal backward. There, simple. Then Ed gets all high tech on me… Shouting ‘keep peddling, even when you are going downhill’ had one or two weeeeeeeeee! moments for a wee 50m stretch of downhill out-of-control-ness. Quite exciting. 😉

We made it to the beach. It’s a bit overcast today, so the beach looked a bit hazy, and you did get that feeling you would be burnt to a cinder. The red flag was flying… Choppy, choppy. The walk along the beach was tempting, however today was about the bikes. That would be enough insanity in itself.

We covered the other half of the resort. I managed not to kill myself, stuck to the really crazy roadways (psyco-paths) and when we were on the roads I remembered to ride on the right. Other bike users waved and said hi, which was altogether sociable.

They did however look marginally fitter than us though.

In the meantime my right knee was going ‘crunch’ my left ‘twang’…. but I stuck it out, ‘crunch…twang….crunch…twang’. Ed then decided it was time for bribery and corruption. Cocktail o’clock. Into the village for a well deserved piña colada.

Then I did admit to Ed that it maybe wasn’t such a smart move getting a wee bit much ‘first day sun’ on your bum and then the next day going out on bikes.

The rental was free for 4 hours, we managed 3 hours which wasn’t bad, considering the last time I was on a bike was about 2004 for 20 minutes and that didn’t go very well!

Ed asked, “how are you getting on?” still living at that point, I replied “I have burning legs and a sore arse!”

“That’s better than sore legs and a burning arse then!” gotta love Ed. however, to be fair, I don’t really know what was burning more.

I survived, go me. It’s ok though, I packed my Voltarol gel and am going for a wee swim in a minute. I am sure wine will also help.

Signing out from poolside.