Results tagged “cycling” from Just Another Stupid Blog
Go and get yourself some brakes and some shifters.
Via Cyclelicious.
This educational video was produced for General Motors in 1978. The narrator keeps saying that he likes bikes but he doesn't seem to think much of their capabilities or the people who ride them.
Remember to watch out for cyclists.
Today was “Travel Differently Day”. Since using public transit wouldn’t be “different” for me and I wasn’t going to ride my bike due to the rain, I guess I should have driven to work today? Take a limo? Fly my helicopter? Hot-air balloon?
Hopefully the weather will be better for Bike-to-Work Week/Day.
DART rail has a lot of construction going on downtown lately, getting ready for the Green Line expansion as well as making the trip through downtown quicker and easier. They have been taking advantage of holiday weekends to shutdown the trains and get construction done more efficiently. For the Thanksgiving holiday, they are shutting down starting on Wednesday when many people, including myself, still have to go to work. They do provide a shuttle bus but that can be a hassle, particularly if many people are trying to use it.
Since my office would be closing early, I decided this would be a good chance for me to try doing a longer commute on the bike. I took the train to Mockingbird Station and then rode over to the Katy trail at Mccommas and McKinney. The trail goes all the way to the American Airlines center, which is about a mile from the Infomart. Excepting the weather, the trip went exceedingly well. The Katy trail is very nice, double wide concrete plus a soft surface jogging trail for most of its length. There are only two road crossing so it was pretty fun, just zipping along. From Mockingbird to the Infomart is about 5.5 miles and the total trip didn’t take much longer than my regular commute would have. In retrospect though, I think I probably had a partial tail-wind and slight down slope in the morning because it was not nearly so nice in the afternoon.
I look forward to taking advantage of this route in the future, when the weather is a little better.
For example, one of the first things I noticed on the bike is this odd little piece of rubber stuck to the frame.
That is the kind of quality I didn't expect from a $350 bike. It has a nicer over-all feel than the Trek comfort bike we bought a few years ago and was similarly priced if not more expensive.
One disappointment is the way it holds together when folded. Dahon uses a magnetic mechanism which is better than some folders which have nothing to hold them together. However, the magnets are not strong enough to always hold and sometimes it opens up when I am getting on and off the train. If you made the magnets any stronger, though, it would be too hard to unfold when you are ready. I think that some kind of locking latch in the frame hinge would be better.
With nothing to absorb the shock, the ride is pretty rough on the broken asphalt roads near my office. Or maybe I'm just getting soft. I haven't found a good route yet to get from the train to the office. I'll have to explore some more this evening.
The security guard at the front door kinda gave me a hard time about taking the bike in the building, asking "Do you have permission from management?" But then she just told me to take it up the service elevator so it wasn't really a problem.
I've used the Trek on and off for getting to work and other transportation since college but mostly it sat and collected cobwebs. Recently, I dusted it off to ride to the train station from my new house. A few weeks ago, I left it locked up at the train station overnight and it was stolen!
Obviously, leaving it there overnight was a bad idea and there was a part of me that wanted something to happen to it so that I would have an excuse to get something new. Now that it's gone, though, I'm really kinda sad. I'm having a hard time accepting that fact that I will never see it again. That bike an I have been through a lot together! Hopefully, it will find its way to a good home and having just replaced the brakes should be good for my bike karma.
It is being replaced with a Dahon Speed D7 folding bike that should be ready for me to pick up shortly. My plan is that with a folder, I should be able to increase the percentage of my commute that is by bike. I will be able to ride on the Katy Trail which will be within a mile of my house in a year or two.
