Old bike:
New bike:
I'm really pleased with the new one. It has an electric motor I can call upon, which means I'm able to go on much more varied journeys as I'm no longer faced with hills that knock the stuffing out of me when I go up them. I've had it for maybe two months, and take it out most mornings. Before the schools broke up, I was averaging maybe five miles a day on it, but now there's no school traffic I can set off earlier and do eight or nine miles before returning home in time to make my wife's morning coffee. If I left it any longer, she wouldn't get her coffee and I'd be in intensive care.
I decided to donate my old bike to charity. It turns out there's a nationwide one called Re-Cycle that refurbishes old bikes and gives them to bike-deprived people in Africa. They don't pick up bikes from your house unless you live within ten miles of their HQ, but as their HQ is conveniently (if bizarrely) located in a barn 2½ miles from where I live, they did pick it up. I hope they have better luck with the gears than I did. It would also be good if they could align the handlebars so they were 90 degrees from the front wheel brackets instead of more like 87 degrees, but I doubt they'll manage it because it's a single piece of metal. If nothing else, they can sell it for scrap, anyway.
Also, it has a new inner tube on the back wheel.
Needless to say, going out for daily bike rides has had no discernable effect on either my weight or my blood pressure.