If you can't ride, read

My bicycle has moved to a storage locker (I still have the front wheel, plus an assortment of tools and accessories in my living room).  While we are temporarily legally separated, I've found some books to comfort and amuse myself during the rainy season.

Even elite racers take an off season.  As a commuter, my riding program is much easier, but I never had more than a few days at a stretch off the bike.  Now I'm trying a do-it-yourself therapy plan, guided by The Healthy Back Directory, by Kim Davis and Dr. Anthony Campell (Metro Books, New York).  This little book has tabbed sections on the back, bones, joints, muscles, and aging, with very basic information and anatomical drawings.  It contains many simple exercises to loosen and strengthen tight, sore muscles and joints, with easy-to-follow instructions and photos.  Bicycling is well known to cause tightness in the shoulders and hips, making the section of the back in between weak and vulnerable to injury.  If you've come to the point that you have to loosen up to do yoga, these gentle exercises are a good start.  There are many different exercises to choose from, so you don't end up over-working the same few movements, and it's easy to stick with exercising consistently.  The book is wire bound, so it opens up flat, and with just a chair, a pillow and a yoga mat for equipment, I've been doing 20-40 minutes four or five nights a week since December.  (I slept a lot better during my legal troubles when I exercised before bedtime.)

Just in time for Valentine's Day, I found Nikki Giovanni's Bicycles - Love Poems (Harper Collins, New York).  The explanation for the title is that "love requires trust and balance."  Some of the poems contain a little too much blues, jazz, red wine and gourmet cuisine for my taste (when I was an English major, it was white wine with cheese & fruit plates).  Giovanni is a professor at Virginia Tech University, and the last poem about the shootings at the campus is phrased a bit like a college fight song - maybe it was written a little too soon after the event.  The poem "Bicycles" starts out:  "Midnight poems are bicycles, taking us on safer journeys than jets, quicker journeys than walking."  I also liked "The Scenic Route," about a mis-matched relationship, which begins "MapQuest is no help there are too many bumpy back roads," and "Gray Clouds Hover" which ends with the comforting thought that February is the shortest month.