True Story

The other day when I was working on a bike I was in desperate need of a zip-tie. After searching my garage, I realized I was out. Then I had a memory flash. The day before I had been on a walk with my kids and seen a zip-tie on the ground in my neighborhood. I mounted the bike and went on the search. Sure enough, the tie was in the spot I had remembered. I picked it up and mounted the fender securely. Wow. What a story.

DISCLAIMER: I realize that this isn't that amazing of a story. But you have to admit, it was resourceful :).

Necessity

I'm not sure I'd be able to bike commute without one of these. I'm very lucky to have two showers at work. I'm not pretty boy, but I want a shower when I'm stinky.  I'm sure my coworkers appreciate that the showers are there, too. What about you?

End of the Road

This is one of the roads I hit today on my commute. I kept going and eventually made it back to pavement. But the road work continued and eventually I had to detour. Not bad, though. I'll eventually have that Multi-use Path to ride on!

New City Bike Set-up

Today was spent outside going on walks with the kids and catching up on some much needed cleaning of the garage. I did have time to fit in some bike chores I'd been wanting to get in. This Trek 800 was purchased from Craigslist back in the fall with the intention of building it up into a city bike to haul the kids around in the trailer. I just got around to working on it today.

It's pretty basic. But I did want to make sure it moved away from its mountain bike roots with beefy tires and rickety components to something a little more sleek for the road.

These are some cheap "ergo" grips that actually make a huge difference in the feel of the bike. They're nothing close to the grips they're trying to imitate... but they are a lot better than a regular rubber grip. Also in this pic you'll see the cheapo shifters on this bike. For some reason I like this cheap Shimano set-up. They're so simple that there's not much to break. And if they do break, it's only a couple bucks to replace them.

This is a must for pretty much all my bikes... at least right now (I tend to change my mind sometimes :)). I've been caught in the rain too often to not just throw some fenders on every bike I ride regularly. These Planet Bike fenders are cheap and durable on a bike that doesn't get ridden but a few times a week for very little mileage.

These slicks were laying around the garage and will most definitely do the job I need them to do. I will say that they were probably the hardest tires to put on that I've ever seen. It took me forever for some reason. But now they're on and with puncture resistant liners in there, I hope I won't have to take them off anytime soon.

The last highlight is the addition of these cheap Nashbar panniers. This bike will run errands to the library, grocery and around town. Since I had these, and don't use them on the commute, I'll leave them on here full time. They'll most likely just hold my lock, books and DVDs for these trips. So they'll serve that purpose well.

The theme of this bike is "cheap." I wanted something I wouldn't be nervous about banging up when locking to a street sign or thieves walking away with it. This is going to be perfect. And the mountain bike gearing will serve me well when hauling 100lbs of kids.

Get out there.

Wool

This is the way to go if you're trying to figure out the whole "my feet get cold when I ride in winter or rain" debacle. It took me a while to learn this. I was a fair weather cyclist for two reasons... my hands got cold and my feet got cold.

I wrote earlier about using mittens and how that solved the problem with the hands. The other issue was solved with wool socks. Even when my feet get wet, wool keeps them warm. That's the big difference.

In the winter, cotton socks would be warm until my feet would sweat. The wetness of my feet would then make them cold. But I finally learned that wool stays warm, even when wet.

The same is true for all wool cycling (or non-cycling) apparel. Put it on and try it. It'll make a difference, I promise.

Get out there.

Every Other Wednesday

Every other Wednesday my wife leaves for the entire evening to serve food to some people that are a little less fortunate than most.  I take that opportunity to grab some tools and an old rag to do some bike maintenance and cleaning. It's like clock-work. So if you're ever wondering what I'm doing on a Wednesday night, I'm probably breaking something, bleeding, learning something new or making progress on my bikes... or even all of the above. It's one of my favorite parts of my routine.

Awesome Video

This is basically my morning commute...



...or not.