Better hurry...
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.
Did you notice whats written on my new bike?
“Cayne Rambler”
“smart suburban and metro area regional transportation”
Thats quite a mouthful just to say folding commuter bike! :)
I took it out for a spin tonight! Oh my gosh! Hard to get used to the brakes!
I didn’t realize it before, but I must normally hold down on the brakes with my hands and put my feet out to stop or go around a sharp corner. That is definately not happening with this bike!
Put your feet down and you keep right on going.
I like the lack of cables and exposed parts though.
The brakes work fine as long as you keep pushing your foot on them.
I rode around the park a bit and down a ways on the sidewalks I will be riding on my commute home from the bus. Feels odd to be on a bike instead of on foot. Its harder to wait patiently at intersections. But at the same time, I wasn’t anxious to head straight home like I do after walking 3 miles. I cruised around my neighborhood and looked at the holiday lights.
I saw a fantastically bright and seemingly nearby shooting star. Looking up at it made me wobble, but it was worth it!
I also like the way your bike works for folding the handle bars much better than mine. Its hard for me to get the quick release tight enough to the handle bars tightly in place with relation to the wheel. Seems like that would be a safety issue if it wasn’t tight enough.
Otherwise it works great and I actually like the upright position.
Thanks for assembling the bike for me!
ma
Ft Worth Star Telegram writer is doing a series on living without a car for a month. So far he has reported how much closer to life in the city he is. Has gotten ideas for future stories.
Excellent, bike (3sp) to just cruise around. If you replace the rear gear with 16T you get more speed without losing the easy pedaling. With the 16T I can Cruise at 15 to 18 mph without making a lot of effort.