Week Three - FRIDAY!!!

TIME THERE: 25 min.
TIME BACK: 27 min.
WEATHER: clear, 10C, 13 km/hr wind there; partly cloudy, 23C, 11 km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, sweatshirt (sweatshirt in panniers on the way home)
NOTES:
Biking to school, it was another day of chiding myself for not investing in gloves yet. My breath made little frosty clouds in front of my face when I was standing still, even though it wasn't really freezing outside. It was very bright, too - maybe I should invest in sunglasses while I'm at it. Maybe funky goggles like snowboarders wear! Hmm, I don't know . . . I doubt I'm cool enough to pull that look off, unfortunately. This weekend must include a trip to Mountain Equipment Co-op to outfit myself with some more biking gear.

On the way home I stuck with my resolution to bike in one gear higher than I'm used to. The problem with that, though, is that this gear skips. That is, sometimes when I put my weight on the pedal it seems like the chain loses traction and the pedal jumps to the bottom of the rotation without having really moved the chain. This is a problem - partly because it's awkward and I feel very self-conscious about that - but mostly because more often than not it happens when I'm putting all my weight into the pedal in order to go from a stop to a decent speed (i.e., when crossing a road). This is a safety issue, just like a driver in the middle of making a left turn suddenly finding that the car won't respond to the gas pedal, even though they're already partway through the intersection. Being able to go when you want to is as much of a safety issue as being able to stop when you want to, and this gear is not really letting me do that.

It was fine for a little while after the tune-up, but it's been an ongoing problem with that gear. Maybe it's all those damn potholes I keep hitting, as much as I'd like to avoid them, jolting my chain out of joint. I'm not willing to spend another $100 on another tune-up though, not so soon anyway! Maybe I'll just have to avoid that gear for the time being. And maybe this experience will motivate me to drag my ass down to EBC so I can just get a bike mechanic to teach me how to fix my bike myself! That'll save some money!! So many great biking resources in this city, I really ought to take advantage of them more.