Farmer's Market

I rigged up my bike up with a milk crate for the farmer's market today. It worked out well, with just a bunch of zip ties holding it to my rack. One more tie held on my blinky light on the back. I laid a small towel in the bottom of the crate to help keep any veggies from getting bruised on the way home. The market was jammed and the weather was beautiful. I found that riding my bike to the market instead of driving left me feeling like I didn't need to rush around and grab my stuff and split, it seemed to take the hurry out of it. I hung around and had a breakfast burrito and a sweet tea from Franklin's, took some time to check out Lonnie Holley's awesome artwork, and bought a ton of veggies. I loaded my new grocery gitter with sweet potatoes, new potatoes, beets, green beans, squash, turnips, tomatoes, and a bag of blue grits. There was plenty of room in the basket, so everything fit comfortably, except the tomatoes. I stuck those in my bag to hopefully keep them from getting knocked around too much. It handled great on the way home, maybe a bit bouncy, but nothing got tossed around. That's probably because my rack is just a seat post rack, no supports down to the dropouts. Just a snip-snip after the market and my bike was back to my commuting bike.

Shimano replacement pins

     I learned (on the internet, how else) that when you push out a Shimano chain pin with a chain tool, you aren't supposed to use that same pin again. You should replace it with a new pin. After my multiple chain breaks I did some searching and found lots of people talking about this. I remember a guy at Bob's Bikes telling me about this last year as well. At the time I poo pooed the idea and I didn't have any problems again until last week. So, I went out last week and got myself 5 Shimano replacement pins for about a buck each and I keep them in my patch kit. I haven't had any chain problems though, so I think removing the link may have solved the problem. I still don't have full confidence back. I'm a little nervous standing up on big hills. I can't stop thinking that the chain may snap, and I'll be castrated, and then run over. Although, I did find myself hammering it out to beat a train across the tracks the other day. I didn't think of the chain until after the fact.

     I'll be pretty excited if the chain thing is worked out, or even if the pins are needed, if they solve the problem. I was nervous that I was going to have to buy a new chain, and that made me nervous that it would lead to skipping, replacing the cassette, etc.. I'd rather spend a little money on finishing converting this (mountain) bike to a commuter bike. I would like to get some 1.4" city tires to replace the 1.95" that are on there now. I think that alone would make a huge difference. I'd also like to swap my rock shocks with the rigid forks on my mountain bike. I don't see any reason that wouldn't work, but I should probably talk to someone about it. Other than that I need a light for the front, overall tune up, and I can move on to my next bike project.

     It is now summer in Alabama. Finally, after a rainy ass spring, the sun is out and it looks like it will be out for a while. It's getting hot, and sweaty, and yummy.

Confidence

I went through a bout of what I call "bike confidence drain" back in the fall when I had a run of flat tires every couple of days. It got to the point where I had to factor in whether I had time to stop and change a tube on my way to work, and if I was running late, I would jump in the car for fear of that flat. So it hit me again this morning. Last week I had a run of chain breaks. After the one I wrote about, it then snapped on me on the way to work on Wednesday. I put it back together, and made it to lunch, then back to the office. But then it snapped again on the way home. At that point I dropped out what I believe to be the offending link, and it was fine on the way home. I'm pretty confident that the removing that link is going to solve by problem. However, when I was getting ready to leave the house today, and it was raining lightly, that bike confidence thing happened again. I suddenly had a picture of myself on the side of the rode in a downpour, chain tool in one hand, chain in the other, and I decided today was a good day to drive. 

Choo Choo Graffiti

Just some choo choo shots on my way home.

Have a lovely Memorial Day Weekend.

Granny Gear

A tough couple of days to start off the week.

Monday: I awake with a crick in my neck. No biggie really, except that it would feel like someone sticking a fork in my neck when I would look over my left shoulder for traffic. That, and the fact that for some reason the am temperature is in the 40s, and there is a gusty wind the last couple of days, made things tough. 

Tuesday: I get about half way to work and my chain snapped. I stood there for a second and thought "no need to look, chain tool is not in the bag today." After examining I noticed the chain did not actually break, but the pin just came out of one of the links. I pushed it back together. At the same time that I realized I could not get it apart, I saw I had not run the chain through my rear derailleur. After a short struggle I got the link apart again, ran the chain through my derailleur and snapped it back again. I figured I could granny gear it back to the house like this. I then noticed I had not run the chain through my front derailleur. I'm on a real streak here. At this point I had lost track of which link had come loose, and could not find it again. So, I just cranked the front derailleur all the way to the outer ring, which allowed me to leave the chain on the inner ring without feeding it through the derailleur. It got me home OK despite the grinding noises from the chain rubbing on the derailleur. The biggest lesson I learned here is that I need to clean my bike more often. I arrived home covered in chain grease/muck. 

Group Ride

There was a group ride for Bike to Work Day on Friday. A 6 mile put-put ride around UAB/downtown Birmingham. I'd guess about 30 people showed, which was more than I expected. Not surprising though, given what a beautiful morning it was. I already had a lot on my plate for Friday and I debated driving my bike over for the ride. After some thought, I decided that, on bike to work day, it was totally unacceptable to drive a bike somewhere that you could ride to. So by the end of the day I ended up logging about 30 miles. That's a lot for me. An average day is about 10 to 12 and a big day is usually about 20. One nice thing about group rides, is they are great confidence builders. Cars generally have more respect for a group than a single rider (especially when there are a couple of cops on bikes with the group). I always leave a group ride with a little more confidence about riding on the road and a bit more trust that cars see me as a vehicle.

Bike to Work Day - Friday May 15th

My friend and yours, Nancy Tran, recently opened up Green Central Station in the Lakeview area. Selling environmentally friendly products in a general store atmosphere. She's got a little bit of everything; dog food, organic snacks, picnic supplies (for rent or to buy), refurbished bicycles (for rent or to buy), gardening essentials, candy, fabulous artwork, and cold drinks. Green Central Station is at 2717 7th avenue south ride on the 7th avenue bike path. In honor of Bike to Work Day she is offering free bottled water and cold drinks to any biker riders that stop in. 

She'll let you use the bathroom too.

Mr. Chai's

I popped into Chai's Oriental Food Store, affectionately known as Mr. Chai's, on may way home today to scoop up some goods for making veggie curry. This place is super on so many fronts. Sure Mr. Chai has giant bags of rice, any number of asian and indian spices and condiments, and fish that comes with a stern warning to only cook outside. Most notably is that it doesn't smell, look or feel like any other store in town. It's Mr. Chai's, period. The prices are really cheap, even on items that you can find in the big grocery stores. Especially the spices - really cheap compared to bigger stores. I scored some coconut milk, chili paste, mint chutney, curry powder and garam masala and headed out to hook up a big pot of curry for the Lost finale tonight.

Closed Mondays.

Life in the Bike Lane

There is often discussion about the dangers of the 7th avenue bike lane here in Birmingham. Usually it revolves around the bike lane being situated between the car lane and the parked cars. This puts us in danger of smashing into a car door, and with any luck, the driver when they open their door  into the bike lane. I use this lane several times a day and I've managed to avoid this fate. Sometimes it's a bit too close for comfort, but it seems that unless someone is just sitting in their car and happens to all of a sudden jump out, it's pretty easy to avoid. Most people opening their car door either just pulled into the spot to park, or are entering their car, and hopefully you would see them doing that and be aware. I'm knocking on wood. The real danger is getting clipped/crushed by someone making a right turn into a parking lot. Drivers are used to swinging right turns into parking lots and driveways pretty freely without concern. This is mostly because unlike making a right turn onto a cross street, there is no traffic approaching from their left. They just need to make sure there is no one approaching from ahead making a left hand turn. That means they are looking forward and left before they turn, not checking their blind spot. Overall, I view this lane as my safety zone. It's the one place where I feel like my place on the road is respected, for the most part.

Rules of the Road

I'm constantly changing how I feel about bicycles vs. cars and rules of the road. Bicycles are expected to follow the same basic set of rules that cars must follow. However, as we all know, most cars don't really follow these rules. There are some rules you can see cars breaking every time you head out on the road. Well, there are certain rules you will almost always see me breaking. Running red lights is one. By running red lights I don't mean blasting through intersections at full speed. I generally come to a full stop, meaning feet on the ground, at red lights. After that, if no one is coming, I'm going. Since I'm generally the only one commuting from my part of town, this isn't creating much of a nuisance. I've even done it directly in from of the police to see if they would care, they don't. At least not the ones that have seen me. I can also be seen alternating between being a road bicyclist and a sidewalk bicyclist. That's not really breaking any rules but it feels like cheating a bit. This is usually how I get to Lucy's in the am. I can go against traffic on 21st street on the sidewalk instead of going all the way around the block and having to deal with riding on 20th street and on university blvd. I also avoid a few additional intersections. It seems that if you live in a town like birmingham that just doesn't have that many bikes on the road, you cam leave a bit more of the rule obeying to common sense rather than just blindly following. I imagine in a city with thousands of bikers, or riding with a group, this wouldn't work well, but it works ok here. 

Bike-o de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo. 

I almost didn't ride to work this morning. I went for a run from Lucy's this morning and did something nasty to may back about half way through. I had to walk for a while and then was able to slowly jog the last mile or so. I decided that if it felt really bad before I started my ride to work I would drive. It didn't feel great starting out, but seemed to loosen up nicely on the ride. My guess is that it feels a whole lot better than it would have if I sat in my car and drove. I suppose if I had really damaged something in my back that wouldn't be the case, so I imagine I've pulled a little something.