60- Here's to the brave ones

Here's to all those that still brave the morning ride despite the rain...

Climbing hills

Took an alternate route home today, had to do quite a bit of hill climbing. The problem wasn't really the hills being steep, but rather them being long. The downhill part was pretty fun, I managed to hit 45 Kph before having to tap the brakes on a blind turn. I figure I could have hit 50, but during rush hour I'd rather skip that trial =)

Squeak Squeak

My bike seat is making this annoying squeaking noise. And it's coming from the seat itself. In fact it's so loud people on the sidewalk notice it as I'm riding past.

Problem is the seat has no moving parts to oil. And I've already taken care of all the pressure joints where things come together, and it still squeaks.

I figure the glue must have come loose somewhere, and when it moves, it makes that squeaking noise. Gonna have to see how much I can take the seat apart in order to get oil into the right place.

Nemesis

This one's got to be my commuting nemesis. About a year back they repaved the street, marked the manhole for elevation... and they never elevated it. They did the same with 2 other manholes that are further up the hill. And it's located precisely at an intersection where there's always a car or two waiting to turn.

So in the afternoon, in the middle of all that, as you're flying down the hill on your bike if you're not careful you'll hit one of these and do a real nice job on your wheel. Hit it fast and hard enough, and you'll probably have to retrue.

I've learned to avoid them, and now I'm making the turn at the top of the hill and my mind's already going "ok, where's the pothole". So they won't be getting me anytime soon.

Hill climbing

Took an alternate route home today, had to do quite a bit of hill climbing. The problem wasn't really the hills being steep, but rather them being long. The downhill part was pretty fun, I managed to hit 45 Kph before having to tap the brakes on a blind turn. I figure I could have hit 50, but during rush hour I'd rather skip that trial =)

Night Rider 2

After last week's test ride downtown, this week it was time to pull off the real thing. We joined the local downtown nightly art tour, to see what would happen. And it went pretty well. The city at night, all the museums you might want to look at, and some stops along the way for necessary food and drink. 3 hours of good fun downtown, not something you get to do every day here.

From what I hear, around 70 people RSVP'd online... only about 8 of us showed up. Guess that's to be expected when you take reservations via the Internet for a free event. Reminds me of that joke on Saturday Night Live: "the Department of Homeland Security would like to thank the multiple anonymous college students who made calls to our hotline reporting the names of dangerous terrorists..."

But on the flip side, seems word of the bike tour is getting around. The organizers tell me there's a lot of embassies that have people that want to join the ride next time, and one of the local TV stations wants to try a "celebrity night ride" stunt in a couple of weeks. If you make it, they will come?

Night Rider

For those who are horrified at the thought of riding downtown, after dark, and on the streets where all the seedy bars are. Yeah, I went riding downtown, after dark, near the seedy bars. So did 5 more people. Then we all rode home... at 10 PM. So get over it.

It's all organized by a group of people, who you probably couldn't call anything but visionaries (given the apparent insanity of the idea). And it's actually not a bad experience. You see the lights, the parks, and you can even learn a bit about the history of the buildings you see along the way.

They tell me this particular city tour was small, since they wanted to make it short. But the last full-scale city night tour, they tell me, had over 1.000 people, some on foot, some on buses, some on bikes.

Next city tour is Wednesday night, and this one's an all-bike tour. If anyone's curious to go, check out the Tour's web page and sign up.

Yeah, let's try it the other way around

October 5, 2010



Yeah, these are the kind of things that make you wonder sometimes. I'm sure the dog was having a wonderful time for the first couple of blocks, but after that being leashed to a bike probably got real old, real fast.

Sometimes people mean well, I'm sure. They just don't take the time to think things through.

Maybe tomorrow they should try it the other way around. Might give the owner a better perspective on their idea.