Snap, Crackle, Pop!

WEATHER THERE: sunny, -2C (-5C with windchill), 8 km/hr cross/headwinds
WEATHER BACK: sunny, 7C, 11 km/hr headwinds gusting to 28 km/hr

I need to change my tires - BADLY.

My beautiful Myka Pro mountain bike is still wearing her insane Schwalbe Ice Spiker tires. These were the all-time best tires in the history of the world for riding on ice and snow, but now that the streets are largely bare they are simply 5 lbs of metallic rolling resistance. They are the bike tire equivalent of wearing spurs, given that there is no way I could possibly sneak up on someone: from a block out, a pedestrian would be able to hear me coming with the snap-crackle-pop sound of my studs demolishing the road beneath them. It literally sounds like I'm riding over Rice Krispies everywhere I go. I guess that's a good thing for safety - being loud - so I guess there is always a silver lining!

But, man, it does not help my feeling that I'm embarassingly out of shape to be riding on tires with that much weight and rolling resistance. I'm working my ass off to maintain speeds of 20 km/hr - and, sure, maybe that's a combination of me being out of shape and my bike needing a good spring tune-up and whatever other excuses I can come up with - but I'm thinking that these daily commutes would get a whole lot easier if I had my regular tires back on. I'm going to try to take my bike in to the shop to get the tires changed out on Wednesday evening or Thursday during the day because - sadly - I've never learned to change my tires myself. And, maybe even more sadly, I'm not that interested in learning - keeping the chain clean and lubricated is enough dirty work for my taste!

I'm hoping by next week I'll be back on regular mountain bike tires and enjoying an easier, faster ride. In the meantime, if you hear some snap-crackle-and-pop nearby and a whole lot of panting, feel free to wave and give me a sympathetic smile. I could sure use the encouragement!

Ice Spiker Indeed!

WEATHER THERE: clear, -4C (-6C with windchill), 6 km/hr cross/tailwinds

WEATHER BACK: sunny, 1C, 13 km/hr tailwinds

All hail, Oh Mighty Ice Spiker tires!!

Wow. Just . . . wow. Seriously. With all the snow we got in early January, then the perpetual melt-and-freeze cycling we've been going through since then, roads and sidewalks are left covered in ice. For the first time in ages, I took advantage of the mild weather and hooked the trailer onto the bike and rode my daughter to daycare today. I was all fine and good until I got to her daycare and got off my bike, only to find that the sidewalks had been replaced by ice rinks and my shoes could barely get any traction. I walked her into the building with ginger baby steps, trying not to fall down.

Why the hell can I barely walk when biking was such a non-issue, you ask? Because I have the all-time greatest tires in the world on my bike! That's right, my friends! These Schwalbe Ice Spikers, man, I'm telling you - they are intense! I encountered many serious ice patches, some literally as smooth as an ice rink, and I didn't so much as waver - not even when pulling the trailer. I even stuck to my preferred residential route, which has much more ice cover than the main roads but makes up for it with virtually no car traffic, and there wasn't even a hint of lost traction.

By the time I got to work, I kind of wanted to make out with my tires. That's how much I'm in love with them. When it comes to icy roads, there's nothing I'd rather be on than my studded-out bike - my car has nothing on this puppy!

The First Ride of the New Year!

WEATHER THERE: Overcast, 9C, 11 km/hr tailwinds
WEATHER BACK: Raining, 15C, 13 km/hr crosswinds


What an auspicious (re)start to biking! The first day of the week - Tuesday - was my first day of my new job, and given that I hauled in an entire suitcase full of decorative knicknacks, textbooks, framed art/degrees/certificates, and dissertation-related documents, I figured it would be best to drive. I spent most of the first day arranging my little office into something I'd be comfortable living and working in for the next nine months. I didn't do any sort of nesting like this when I did my internship last year - and who knows - maybe that contributed to me feeling so burnt out by the end. So, I determined to make a greater effort not to let myself burn out this year. With just a little decorative flair, a few scented candles, and dark-wood-framed degrees and certificates for some narcissistic demonstration of my accomplishments, now I've got a charming little office to call my home-away-from-home! Much better than the industrial chic I'm used to.

Wednesday and Thursday are my days off, and those days this week were spent working from home and attending a few meetings to get my dissertation kick-started again after a year-long hiatus. Between working from home on Wednesday and attending three meetings in three different locations back to back with very little commuting time alotted between each, I was unable to bike for either of those days.

So - Friday! My first official day back to bike-commuting! I took the new mountain bike - name still to be determined - and appreciated the smoothness of the ride even as I encountered roads deeply pockmarked with potholes, small rocks, and numerous puddles. Though it wasn't raining when I left the house in the morning and it wasn't calling for rain later in the day, it had rained overnight and left puddles all over, so I opted to wear my rain jacket. This proved to be a most prudent decision, as the late afternoon sky opened up and started pouring rain just before I left the office for the day. Note to self: always bring rain gear!

I still need to equip my new bike with a bell and lights, and I also just noticed that the bike didn't come with reflectors so I'll have to get those too. I'll also need a reflective leg band to keep my right pantleg off the chain, as the bike didn't come with a crash guard so my pants manage to get sucked into the whirling vortex of the front chain ring more often than I'd like. Despite the rain, and despite how I was panting so hard I kind of felt like puking after cresting the hill at the end of the High Level Bridge, it felt damn good to get back to it today. I know my strength will come back, and so will my stamina, and every day that stupid hill is going to get easier. Meanwhile, I'll get to save money on parking and gas, start my day with pink cheeks and a rosy glow, get some much-needed exercise as we enter into the cold season, and demonstrate to my daughter how natural, easy, and fun daily exercise can be as I haul her to daycare in the bike trailer.

Bike commuting: 1. Driving: 0.

And So It Begins Again! Sort of . . .

WEATHER THERE: clear, 10C, 17 km/hr tail/crosswinds
WEATHER BACK: a few clouds, 14C, 11 km/hr head/crosswinds

What has two thumbs and biked to work today? THIS GAL!! (pointing at self with said thumbs)

Despite having a terrible night's sleep (thank you, daughter, for your multiple overnight snack attacks and at least one bad dream), despite the weather calling for rain today, and despite wanting to be lazy for these last couple days of my internship, I biked today! Yay, it feels good to be back! Well, let me rephrase: it feels like an accomplishment to get back on the bike. And that makes me feel gooood. Here are some pros and cons to my ride today:

Pros:
- the exercise and fresh air really woke me up this morning
- I felt really good about myself
- having recently attached a computer to my bike, I was able to track my speed and ride time, which was really interesting
- I got to put my new bike through its paces for the first time - and the disc brakes are amaaaazing!!

Cons
- more pre-bed prep time required: I not only have to make my lunch for the next day, I also have to lay out my cycling clothes, pack my panniers with my work clothes, and transfer everything from my purse to my panniers
- I had to wake up earlier to give myself more time for the commute
- I'm so out of shape that after climbing the hill at the end of the High Level Bridge I genuinely felt like I was going to puke
- being on a new, unfamiliar seat hurt my ass bones (owwww!)
- my right hand got really numb during the ride - I hate hand-numbness
- when I confessed to my co-workers how much money I spent on my new bike, they were shocked and horrified that I would bring such an expensive bike on campus without first getting it insured against theft, and that left me feeling anxious for the rest of the day about whether my bike would be stolen while I was at work

After riding it for a somewhat extended period of time for the first time today, I have to say I'm a big fan of this bike. The shocks on the front fork make a huge difference in riding comfort, the wide knobby tires make me feel like I can more easily and confidently negotiate the rocky-sandy-dirty piles of crap that coat the edges of the roadway, and it's light enough that I didn't notice a significant difference in efficiency from my road bike. All in all, it seems like an excellent purchase for commuting!

However, I feel like I need to get more prepared before I can really get back to full-time bike-commuting. I will need to:
- invest in a reflective leg band to keep my pants from rubbing against the chains/gears
- move the bell from Eastwood (who is remains broken and unfixed) onto the new bike
- invest in some riding gloves to avoid continued annoying hand numbness
- alter my homeowner's insurance to include my bike so I can insure my new bike against theft

I have to pick up a newly-fixed Mike the Bike from the bike mechanic directly after work tomorrow, and on Friday I have a half-day that involves some moving of things out of my old office, so I won't be biking for the rest of the week. It was nice to get a flavour for what it's like to get back on the bike today, though, and perhaps I'll get back to full-time commuting again next week feeling more prepared, better insured, less ass-sore, and fully motivated! I'm looking forward to it!

New Wheels

Hello friends! Have I got news for you. I am the proud owner of a new BIKE! While I haven't yet named this new addition to my bike family, I must say I've been pleased as punch since bringing her home form Revolution Cycle on Saturday. Oh, and she's a girl - a welcome change of pace from my boys, Mike the Bike and Eastwood. Here are her first pictures:

My new bike: a Specialized Myka Pro hard tail mountain bike.

Accessories include a Topeak rack, front and rear fenders, and a water bottle cage.

Features disc brakes and some front-end suspension that was sorely missing from my previous commuter bike.

Yesterday I went into Revolution Cycle with one purpose in mind: spend more money than I'm used to, and get a bike that's going to handle some rough riding. The sales guy who helped me - Rob - asked me what I was looking for, and I said, "I'm a year-round commuter, biking 16 km a day, sometimes in the river valley but often not, and I want something under $800." He considered this for a moment, then responded, "I can help you with that."

Now, let's not kid ourselves here, I did not end up spending $800. The bike I was originally hoping to get my greasy paws on - the Specialized Ariel - was only available in extra large frames, and I need a small. That wasn't going to happen. He showed me a couple hybrids, but the frames were too big. Then he brought me to the mountain bikes, and that's where I met my new baby. I checked out a couple of the mountain bikes, and this one was out of my price range - marked down from $1,500 to $1,099 - but when I took it for a test ride I fell in love.

While testing it out, I hit as many potholes as I could, rode it off curbs, and tried to reach my top speed along flat, straight roads. I found that it was a fantastic all-around bike for whatever my commute might throw at me. It's MUCH lighter than Eastwood and features a wide range of gears with trigger shifters that got me through the wide range of 24 gears without issue. Because it's light and the tire pressure is high it is quite efficient, which means it can reach decent speed without an epic amount of effort on my part, while the front shocks make it a smooth ride that's much easier on my hands and arms. To top it all off, if I ever do want to try out mountain biking (and I've been thinking about it for a while because it seems like it would be really freakin' fun!!) I've got a really good bike for that. It's versatile, it's built to withstand a rough ride, and it's awfully pretty too. I am VERY happy with my new ride!!

Rob gave me a good deal - we wasn't able to lower the price of the bike, but gave me some deep discounts on my accessories (that were installed without extra charge!), gave me a longer stem for free, and didn't charge me tax. I couldn't be happier with the outcome! I'll have to invest in some studded tires for the winter, as the ones I have currently are 700cc's and my new baby is rocking 28" tires. But at least now I can outfit both Mike the Bike and my new girl for winter riding and get to choose day to day which one I want to ride - the road bike or the mountain bike! Win-win, methinks. Choice is a very good thing.

Update

This is me taking a MEC "Desire" bicycle out for a test drive. Can't say I was a big fan.

It's been too long, my friends! It's been far too long.

Now that it's nearing the end of August and I haven't written a blog entry in weeks, I thought it's about damn time to give you a little update about what's been going on in HealthyBiker Land. The truth is, HealthyBiker hasn't been so healthy lately.

First of all, Mike the Bike has been out of commission since the last blog entry I wrote. So has Eastwood, my $50 mountain bike. I've been hemming and hawing about whether I should get one or both of these bikes fixed, or just buy a new and much better bike, or whether I'd even be biking again come September. A lot of those decisions couldn't be made until I knew what my plans were going to be for the upcoming school year - how much money would I be making? Would I be working full-time? How much time flexibility would I have? All of these factors would impact whether I was biking or walking and what my bike budget might be.

The truth is, it's August - fucking - 24th and I STILL don't know what's going on! I had an interview today for a potential job, I have another one scheduled for next week, I've already had two others (this is all on top of working full-time and being a single freakin' parent to The Tantrum Queen). And as of this moment I am no closer to knowing the answers to any of those pressing questions. This, despite the fact that September is ONE WEEK AWAY.

I can't say that I handle this uncertainty well. In fact, this is the kind of thing that causes me to stress out so much I develop Irritable Bowel Syndrome (that's a fact, my friends: I did actually develop a one-time, months-long bout of IBS while I was waiting to hear whether I was accepted into the PhD program a few years ago - which is, I guess, marginally better than having an intestinal parasite).

This is also the kind of thing that causes me to overeat . . . and by that I mean binge. Hard. That utterly useless coping mechanism, combined with a complete absence of biking and any other form of exercise for that matter, has left me feeling like all the health benefits I gained from the hard work of the past 11 months of bike-commuting has been completely erased by the last six weeks of shitty living. I know I've gained weight - a distressing amount, in fact, given the short time I've gained it in. I feel remarkably unfit. I know all this has to stop - I need to get my eating habits back under control and get back into some kind of exercise routine, like, say, getting back on the freakin' bike already!!!! At the same time, I feel just as stuck about my decision-making abilities today as I did six weeks ago.

While waiting for time to provide me with some much-needed answers, I've been dragging my ass slowly and bitterly to the finish line of my internship (which has been a truly fabulous experience, and also utterly exhausting). Today I spent some time cleaning out my office in between seeing some of my clients for the last time. It's kind of sad because I have to end these relationships, yet it's also kind of triumphant because so many of my clients are doing so much better than they were before that it feels like I'm watching formerly wounded birds fly back into the wild again after a full recovery. It's emotional, and rewarding, and altogether stressful.

I couldn't take the waiting game anymore. I contacted BikeWorks, the awesome do-it-yourself bike shop run by the Edmonton Bike Commuters Society, to see if they would be able to fix Mike the Bike for me. They said they don't operate like that - that a volunteer mechanic could help me fix Mike, but that I'd have to do the work. Since I work full-time and have my daughter on my hip every moment I'm not at work, that's something I just don't have the time to do, but the lovely and helpful Anna from BikeWorks got me in touch with one of the volunteer mechanics who would be able to fix Mike the Bike for a much more reasonable rate than a bike shop service department would charge. So, daughter on my hip and Mike the Bike stuffed into my trunk, I drove Mike out to this mechanic's garage and got a quote - the $300 fix-up quoted by the bike shop was now going to cost me $100. Done deal!

So, Mike is now officially in repair. My front porch seems so empty without his presence. In the meantime, my fingers keep drawing me to the new and improved Revolution Cycle website where they have a list of bikes on sale. It is a very good time of year to buy a new bike, isn't it, my fellow bike-commuters? I have a very good mind to say "fuck it all!!" and just get Mike repaired for use as a beater bike and invest some money on a brand spankin' new general purpose bike. When it would appear that I can get a pretty decent bike for under $800 at Revolution Cycle right now, why the hell not??

I wish I could tell you something about the job situation for the coming year. I wish I could tell you more about what bike I'm going to get. I wish I could tell you when I'm even going to get Mike back. But I can't. So I'll check out the bikes on sale at Revolution Cycle, I'll keep in touch with the awesome bike mechanic, and I'll keep trying to get my life in order for September. And I promise, after that several week hiatus I just inflicted upon you, I'll be very sure to keep you posted from now on!!

Week 46 - Day Three: Rained Out/Mechanical Failure

Yesterday I didn't bike because of the rain. When I drove to work in the morning, I felt small pangs of guilt about leaving the bike at home as I saw a couple cyclists out braving the mild rain that was falling. Throughout the day, as the rain turned into overcast skies, I felt worse. Should I have just braved it myself? Then came the drive home: it was raining hard when I first left work, and torrential downpours came in fits and bursts. There were moments when the rain pelted my car sideways because the wind was so strong. There were moments when I could barely see beyond the hood of my car, even with my wipers going full-speed, because the rain was coming down so hard and fast. There were no cyclists out, no pedestrians. I didn't even see people waiting at bus stops. It was insane. That ride home made me feel perfectly justified in taking the car to work.

Yesterday evening, I spent some time on my bike preparing it for a bike-commute for today: I tightened the headset, filled up the tires, and lubricated the chain, as the last rainy ride washed off a lot of the lube. During this preparatory period, I noticed I had a loose spoke on the back tire. I wiggled it, and it came off - another broken spoke. That would be #7 on that rim. Out of 24 spokes. Now, I knew when I bought that bike that one comment in the reviews was "it's not a curb-jumper", and I've tried to go relatively easy on it as a result. A broken spoke here and there hasn't surprised me. But seven?? Come on!!

I'm right back to that point where I have a serious dilemma on my hands, just as I did a couple weeks ago that last time a spoke broke on me. Do I replace the spoke, as I eventually did last time? Do I refurbish the whole bike (i.e., replace the chain, replace the back rim, give it a tune-up and a thorough wash, etc.)? Do I replace the whole bike with a better, more expensive one, especially if I'm going to continue bike-commuting for the foreseeable future? Or do I give up on bike-commuting for the time being?

This dilemma is more complicated than it might seem. Starting in September, my internship will be over and my time will more flexible because I'll be exclusively working on my dissertation. Given that flexibility, I'm planning to walk-commute to school instead of bike-commuting because I no longer need the time-efficiency of the bike and I prefer walking as a form of exercise. Further, I *may* be moving to another city as soon as January 2011, and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to bike- or walk-commute wherever I end up. ALSO, I'm facing the expense of having to buy a laptop so I can work on my dissertation from a school-based office, so I'm not sure how feasible it is to buy an expensive bike and a laptop around the same time. After all, I'm still a student and a single parent, so money is always an issue.

I need to consider this more thoroughly. As much as I'd love a new bike, I don't think I can justify an expense like that at this time. Even good used bikes are not cheap. Should I repair my current bike and finish off my year of commuting with it, even if it might cost a couple hundred dollars to do that and I might not use it much anymore beyond the end of August? And what if I can bike-commute wherever I end up after I move, then shouldn't I wait and just invest in a better bike?

Any thoughts, my faithful readers?? Your input would be most helpful!

Week 44 - Day One: Mrs. Fix It Gets Bloody

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 22 min.
TIME BACK: 22 min.
WEATHER: clear, 16C, 13 km/hr cross/tailwinds there; a few clouds, 23C, 6 km/hr cross/tailwinds.
WHAT I WORE: yoga capris, t-shirt, zip-up hoodie (hoodie in panniers on the way home)
NOTES:

Poor Mike. He's seen better days. His brake pads are wearing thin, especially on the rear wheel; some of the cogs on his cassette are missing teeth, making some gears essentially useless because the chain keeps skipping over the broken parts; the headset loosens up after a certain amount of use, resulting in creaking noises and distressingly shifting handlebars until I tighten it again; and, generally, the bike is feeling kind of stiff and creaky and in ill repair.

Over the weekend, I decided to attempt a bit of a home remedy by replacing the rear brake pads with brand spanking new ones. I've never done this before myself or seen anyone do this, but it didn't look too difficult. I did manage to figure out how they went on, but it took some futzing around to figure out how to loosen the brakes enough for me to get the new pads on and how to adjust everything to make sure it all fit together properly.

While working on the brakes, I managed to stab my thumb with a loose piece of wire from the brake cable. This thin, sharp, and filthy errant string of metal penetrated fairly deeply into my finger pad (which itself was pretty filthy from working on the bike). There was instantaneous blood flow coming out of a very tiny little hole right in the middle of my thumb, and given the depth of the wound there was a surprising amount of pain. I was close to being finished with the brakes, so I finished those off before trying to clean up my bloody mess. This was perhaps a mistake.

Blood flowed from my thumb, sullying the brand new brake pads and the wheel fork and even the ground beneath me. By the time I went to clean up my wound, it was all a big mess of blood and bike grease and road dirt. If the loose wire itself didn't cause an infection deep in my thumb from its initial penetration, surely this mess would have traveled into the wound and done it. Now, twenty-four hours later, my thumb is sore enough that I find it very difficult to text message and do other thumb-heavy activities, and I worry about whether some kind of tiny little infection will set in. Maybe next time I injure myself while working on the bike, I'll take the time to clean myself up right away before the wound starts closing. Or maybe I should behave a little more prissy and just pay someone to work on my bike for me. I'm too damn delicate for this stuff!

Week 43 - Day Two: Mike's Back!

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 24 min.
TIME BACK: 26 min.
WEATHER: max temperate 21.7C, min temperature 12C, mean temperature 16.9C, 1 mm precipitation (sorry for the vagueness, I forgot to record the weather for this post and have to go by historical data)
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, tank top, zip-up hoodie
NOTES:

Last night I walked home after a busy day at work, picked up my daughter from daycare, took Mike's tire to the bike store to get the broken spoke fixed, went home and made/served/cleaned up after dinner, put my daughter to bed, then proceeded to get Mike ready to hit the road again. I put the tire back on, lubricated the chain, and put the seat that I had only recently transplanted onto Eastwood back onto Mike. It felt like a long and horrible day, but by the end of the evening I felt pretty damn good: I'd be able to bike again! It felt like it's been a while.

It was really nice to be back in the saddle, though I know I say this every time I have a break from biking and return to it. It certainly comes as no surprise. Still, I've really enjoyed switching on and off between walking and biking. Doing one for a while makes me crave the other, and so when I switch back and forth whenever I desire I feel perpetually grateful for whatever mode of transportation I take, and I never feel bored. This is a pretty damn good system, I have to say.

Week 43 - Day One: Walkin' Fool

Last Thursday I managed to murder Eastwood. Since then, I've been faced with a conundrum: do I work over my lunch hours to make up for the extra time it would take me to walk, or do I spend $14 a day in parking and drive? Also, it begs the question: when the Hell are you going to get your damn bike(s) fixed??

I ended up walking last Friday and today, opting to work over my lunch hours (which is, admittedly, stressful and not the best idea given the high rate of burn-out in my profession). It's been lovely because the weather has been gorgeous, so it's given me the opportunity to get some fresh air and sun and really take in the river valley as I book-end my days with a lovely de-stressor. However, I don't see this being entirely sustainable - especially the working over lunch bit - so I need to get at least one bike fixed, and soon.

Mike's broken spoke will likely be much cheaper to fix than Eastwood's broken cassette, so I'll concentrate on that. I took the back wheel off last night and put it in the car so I'm reminded that right after I pick up my daughter from daycare I need to swing by the bike shop and get it fixed. Hopefully by tomorrow I can go back to biking. As much as I like walking, I'm starting to miss the speed and exhilaration I get from biking. I'm also afraid that the more time I spend away from biking, the weaker my thighs will get, consequently making it more difficult to return to the saddle when I finally do.

So - back to biking tomorrow? That's the intention. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy every bouncy step of my walking today.

Week 42 - Day Four: Driving AGAIN, Eastwood is DEAD!

Last night, just as I was cleaning up after dinner, my daughter toddled onto the front porch and started playing with the bike trailer. "Mommy, bike stroller?" she said as she climbed into it and tried doing up the buckles.

"Do you want to go for a bike ride?" I asked her.
"Bike ride?" she responded. I think that means yes. So I strapped her in properly and put on her helmet and decided to go for a little family bike ride. It's nice to get out and do a bit of exercise with my daughter - we rarely get a chance to do that, so it's nice to fit it in when we can. Besides, I'd just had a little more for dinner than I intended to and I figured a little extra calorie-burning at the end of the day couldn't hurt.

So off we went for a bike ride. Eastwood was starting to make some weird noises, a rhythmic clinkity-clinky-clack every time I pedaled. When I was coasting it didn't make that sound, but when I was pedaling it did. Sometimes it got so loud people a block away were staring at me. This can't be good.

After about 20 minutes of tooling around our neighbourhood, weaving through the grid of residential streets, we started heading back. A few blocks away from the house, the clickity-clacking reached its peak, there was one loud clink, and then suddenly I was pedaling but feeling no resistance. I tried shifting gears up and down to see if the chain had just fallen off the cogs a bit, but that didn't work. I coasted to a stop despite pedalling frantically. Okay, what's going on here?

Somehow, the cassette had detached from the rear wheel, and in the couple minutes that I played with it on the side of the road with my daughter looking at me quizzically, I couldn't figure out how to fix it. So I walked the bike home, dragging the trailer behind it. So much for our family bike ride! What really sucks is that I had JUST switched the saddle from Mike onto Eastwood, this time taking Evillerider's advice and switching the saddle rather than the whole psot. And what really sucks even more is that I can't ride Mike right now because I haven't fixed that broken spoke yet! Given that Mike only has 24 spokes per wheel as it is, I figured it would be best to hold off riding him until I get that fixed.

So I have TWO bikes out of commission right now. Hence, driving today. It's okay, I had to go to the bank after work for a financial appointment anyway so I had to drive regardless. Nevertheless, I'd better get this out-of-commission bike situation under control - I still have the whole rest of the summer to bike-commute, and it'd probably be helpful to actually have a bike for that!

Week 42 - Day One: Saddle Switcharoo

BIKE: Eastwood
TIME THERE: 26 min.
TIME BACK: 55 min. (walking)
WEATHER: a few clouds, 12C, 24 km/hr cross/tailwinds there; a few clouds, 18C, 11 km/hr crosswinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, zip-up hoodie
NOTES:

Given the negative impact Eastwood's saddle has been having on my sensitive lady-bits, at the end of last week I decided I'd try switching saddles with Mike. So I broke out my wrench and pulled the ol' switch-a-roo. But there was a problem: Eastwood's seat post was thicker than Mike's, so hard as I might crank the damn wrench it just never seemed to get tight enough around that thinner post. I did my best, and the post didn't seem to be sliding even as I tested it by hefting all my weight onto the seat. So I gave it a shot - I tried biking to school with Mike's thinner, less heavily-padded seat.

The effect on my lady-bits was instantaneously appreciation - no more cutting into me in that horrible way that Eastwood's saddle tended to, leaving marks and saddle sores. The problem was that as the ride progressed, the seat slid down because the seat post was too damn skinny. About a third of the way into the journey the seat had fallen as far as it could and was resting on the frame below, leaving me with my legs crunched up and unable to extend. It was a terrible ride, one I wouldn't recommend to anyone.

I gave it one more shot - adjusting the seat once more before heading home. I tried to get it even tighter than before, and I was hopeful that maybe this time I might make it work. Alas. This was not to be. Once again, it didn't take long into the ride before I sunk down by a couple inches, making me work much harder to maintain my speed because I wasn't getting full power out of my legs without their full extension.

FINE! Back to the way it was. I switched the seats back, and now Eastwood is once again messing with my lady-bits. I think there might be a way to play switch-a-roo with just the seats, instead of the whole seat post, but quite frankly I'm tired and cranky and I want to get my lazy ass to bed.

So until I develop another unbearable saddle sore, I'm leaving damn well alone.

Week 40 - Day Two: New Project

BIKE: Eastwood
TIME THERE: 24 min.
TIME BACK: 26 min.
WEATHER: clear, 6C, no wind there; overcast, 15C, 19 km/hr cross/tailwinds home.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, sweatshirt
NOTES:

I have a lot to learn about bicycle mechanics. Not that I want to - in fact, I'm really not a fan of getting my hands greasy and spending my rare, precious free time trying to figure out how to attach trailers to bikes or change a tire or fix broken spokes. If I had more free time, I think I would quite enjoy this as a hobby - working with my hands, figuring things out, being practical and productive in a way that as an academic I just about never am. However, when my workspace is a cramped uninsulated front porch and my free time consists of about one hour per day right before bed, working on my bike isn't really something I crave.

However, I need to do something about Mike. He has a broken spoke and has therefore been out of commission. I have no time to take him to the bike shop to get repaired, and it occurred to me today that I might as well try to fix the damn spoke myself. I've already managed to wrestle the bent and broken piece of metal out of the spoke nipple (that's right, that's what it's called). All I need to do it put on a new one! It can't be THAT hard, right?? So, that's my new project: replacing poor Mike's broken spoke.

The only problem is finding the time to get out to MEC to buy new spokes. Perhaps I'll be able to get to that this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes!! Wish me luck . . .

Week 39 - Day One: Decisions, Decisions

BIKE: Eastwood
TIME THERE: 22 min. (woot woot!)
TIME BACK: 24 min.
WEATHER: partly cloudy, 9C, 13 km/hr headwinds there; a few clouds, 16C, 15 km/hr tailwinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, sweatshirt
NOTES:

I've been riding Eastwood for the past couple days because poor Mike the Bike is out of commission with a broken spoke. This has thrown me into a tailspin of bike research: now that I know how much I dislike the high maintenance required of winter biking, I would love to move up to an internal hub bike for my next purchase, and I have my eye set on this little puppy: Desire by Mountain Equipment Co-Op. It's a hybrid, built specifically for women's proportions, and it has an internal hub so it's super low maintenance - could a bike possibly be more suited to me??

There are two problems with this bike, though: (1) the Edmonton MEC doesn't carry bikes, so I'll have to drive out to Calgary to get it, and if I need any servicing/repairs on it that come free with the purchase of the bike, I'd have to return to Calgary every time (or just forego MEC and pay for it myself at another bike shop here); and, (2) with an internal hub around the rear axle, I can't attach my daughter's trailer to it, so I'd either have to use one of my other bikes to haul my daughter around (i.e., repair Mike's spokes and use him, or see if I can attach it to Eastwood) or purchase something else to transport my daughter with on the new bike.

Another problem is that it's a $750 bike. In the world of bikes that's not very expensive, but it's sure a lot more than the $250 I spent on Mike, and WAY more than the $50 I spent on Eastwood. As a single parent and a full-time student, is it really worth it to spend that much money on a bike? Especially since I still have over a year left on my car lease, so I'm simultaneously paying for a car?

Ack! Decisions, decisions! I don't think I'll be in Calgary for a while, so I don't have to make any immediate decisions. Still, it's something to think about. And every day I think about it and put off getting a new bike is another day I'm stuck driving my daughter to daycare because I haven't hooked the trailer up to Eastwood. Ahh, well, there are worse things than doing a little driving every day . . . I guess . . . (hmmph).

Week 38 - Day Four: A Long Day

BIKE: Eastwood
TIME THERE: 24 min.
TIME BACK: 25 min.
WEATHER: light rain, 12C, 7 km/hr headwinds there; overcast, 14C, 19 km/hr crosswinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, sweatshirt
NOTES:

With Mike the Bike out of commission with a broken spoke (and missing teeth in the cassette, and in desperate need of a new chain), I determined last night that I would ride Eastwood to work this morning. Even when I was up until almost 2:00 am last night, I promised myself I would still bike today. When the alarm went off at 6:30 am and I couldn't will myself to open my sandpaper eyes, the only part of my brain that seemed to be working was the one that comes up with excuses not to bike. And yet, I did it. I just mindlessly got everything together, got my daughter ready, and headed out the door. Into the rain. Where the chain promptly fell off the chainring and I had to fix it with my daughter crying beside me and my hands getting all greasy before work. I sighed. It was only 7:30 am, and it's already feeling like a loooooong day.

I had a bit a slower day, which I'm grateful for because I really didn't have the mental capacity to handle a heavy client load. Still, not being busy made the day drag even longer. When it came to quitting time, my mind started racing, looking for someone to mooch a ride from. After all, it was forecast to thunderstorm during my ride, and sure, it wasn't storming right then, but what if I got caught in it half-way home? What THEN??

Nobody came to my rescue, so I reluctantly mounted up and rode home. This old $50 used mountain bike is an infinitely more comfortable ride than Mike, but the shifters are these terrible twist mechanisms that are imprecise and kind of useless, so I spent most of the ride both there and back today trying to ride the shifters and find some gear that might work for me while I clumsily rode clickity-clankity along with the chain not fully settling into gear. GAH! I definitely am not used to this bike.

Tomorrow I'm driving to work because I'm leaving early and heading off to the airport to visit family over the long weekend. That means I'm spending this evening doing laundry and packing and getting everything organized for tomorrow - which is actually quite a feat, considering I'll be travelling as a sole adult with a toddler. I just want to have a hot shower and drop into bed right now - I'm so dead tired - but it seems that's not in the cards. I have a trip to get ready for. SIGH!

It's only 7:30 pm. What a loooooong day.

Week Twenty-Four - Day Two: Et tu, Mike the Bike?

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 29 min.
TIME BACK: 29 min.
WEATHER: overcast, -8C, 9 km/hr wind there; clear, -3C, 6 km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: fleece pants, turtleneck, fleece mid-layer jacket, lobster gloves, balaclava
NOTES:

Don't die on me now, Mikey!! STAY WITH ME!!!

Over the weekend I took it upon myself to try to clean Mike up a bit. I took some bike cleaner and a wire brush and some lubricant and went to town on the chain and gears. It was a remarkably messy and disgusting task, and since I was doing this on my uninsulated front porch in my pajamas, it was freezing work as well. As I started, I found it remarkable that Mike was working at all, given the state of his chain. It was so encrusted with filth - snow, dirt, road salt - that some links wouldn't bend as they went around the gears. Working the pedals backwards with one hand as I tried to clean everything with my other hand, I found that I would hardly get through one rotation before the chain would fall out of place and get stuck. How did I ever let you get so injured, Mike?? How the hell did you manage to work under those conditions?

This week, everything has continued to feel just a little bit off with good ol' Mikey. Everything feels just a little bit creaky, the stem has to be tightened at the end of each day, the chain sometimes skips a bit as I pedal along . . . and there's the knowledge, too, that the last time I took him in to get some spokes replaced, I was told that the back rim is "untrue" (I don't think that means that it cheated on me) and if more spokes break on it then the whole rim will likely have to be replaced. Oh, Mikey, I've ridden you hard, it's true - but do you have to give up on me so soon? It's hardly been six months!! At least make it through the winter for me, hon - do it for old time's sake.

I'm planning to take Mike to a self-serve car wash this weekend and give him a really good high pressure wash. Hopefully that'll do him some good. Get him all spiffy, lube him up, and maybe he'll ride as good as new by next week! Until then, I just hope he makes it through the rest of the week. Now that it's so mild and everything's melting, he just might have a chance . . .

The Bike Commute That Never Was

Sticking with my executive decision from yesterday, seeing snow on the ground this morning I opted to keep my bike at home and drive to work today. I dropped off my daughter at daycare and made it to work in good time. Luckily, the roads weren't quite as slick as they were yesterday so I didn't run arcoss any accidents along the way. I parked on campus and walked towards my building, and as I did I felt the harsh sting of jealousy as a cyclist passed me on his knobby-wheeled mountain bike. I should be on that bike! A few steps later, I saw another cyclist go by, and then a third. Come on people, why are you rubbing it in??

The jealousy I felt for those cyclists and the resentment I felt about having to drive today all took me completely by surprise. I mean, I know that the bike commute has grown on me since the beginning days of great struggle way back in the heady times of early September, but I didn't realize just how much it had become such a highlight of my day. I missed my bike dearly, and I missed my ride, too. "That's it," I decried, "I'm getting a knock-around winter bike with fat knobby wheels - no more waiting for my studded tires to come in!"

So I did. I found a used mountain bike for sale for $50 on a free classifieds website, and after work I went to check it out. The tires were flat, the thing was covered in dust, and I could see the beginnigs of rust developing on the gear cassette, but the wheels turned fine and the seat felt cushy and I figured $50 was a pretty great deal for a bike with freakin' suspensions! So I took it.

I spent an hour after picking up my daughter working on the bike - filling the tires, checking the brakes, trying to put the fenders and bike rack from Mike the Bike onto the new guy. I learned after getting remarkably filthy and spending way too much time on it that neither accessory would fit the new bike, as it's longer, lower to the ground, and thicker than Mike (who's one tall and lean machine). I began trying to put the accessories back on Mike, but by this time my daughter (who had spent this whole time getting bike-greasy herself and playing with her trailer) was ready for dinner and was not interested in waiting any longer. So fixing Mike will have to wait for another day.

After I put my daughter to bed, I snuck out of the house and rode the new bike up and down my block a few times just to give it a try, since I bought it without evening having gotten on it. I couldn't believe how smooth and soft the ride felt compared to the hard ride I get off Mike. The new bike must be about twice the weight of Mike, and it's loaded with thick, knobby tires that will provide great traction even on light snow (huzzah!) but has the downside of adding a lot of rolling resistance to the ride. Even then, I didn't feel I had to work harder to get it going. I only went as far as the end of my block, though - perhaps when I take it to the streets and ride to school with it tomorrow I will.

I feel as giddy as a school girl about taking this bike out tomorrow! Sure, it's naked, so I'll have to wear a backpack instead of using panniers, and I'll make sure to bring my waterproof shell so I don't get wet up the back from the puddles of melted snow on the road. But it's a new bike! And it's so different from Mike! And I get to BIKE to school again!! Yaaaaay! Only one more sleep until my next ride! I can't wait!

Honestly, I AM Smart . . .

So, remember how yesterday I commented that Mike (my bike) was heavier and harder to pedal around now that I have accessorized him? Well, I stand by my assertion that he's heavier - that I can tell when I'm carrying him up and down the stairs. However, I just realized it may be a very different reason than the accessories that's causing me more difficulty when pedalling.

It would appear that while I was messing around with the fenders and rack, I was also nudging the back brakes out of alignment. It ended up being fine at the outset of the ride, but the first time I used the brakes, one pad remained in contact with the wheel even after I released the brake, resulting in a decent amount of resistance against the back wheel. Accessories make the bike heavier, a crying baby being towed in the trailer makes the bike heavier and the ride less bearable, but it was the brake rubbing against the back tire that made pedalling WAY more work than it needed to be.

I tried adjusting it by hand before biking to an appointment this morning, but I found that once again, once I used the brakes that one pad just stayed there against the wheel. This actually caused a bit of a safety issue when I was crossing an intersection and wanted to coast to a halt on the other side, but with the stay-in-place brake I stopped quite abruptly and short of my destination, in the middle of the road, which caused me to lose my balance a bit. Luckily I wasn't going fast at all and managed to simply look clumsy in front of a long line of car traffic instead of actually falling (which is embarrassing in itself). Still, it was enough to assure me that the brake problem must be fixed before the next ride.

When I got home, I adjusted the back brake with an allan key and some guesswork about what screws attached to where and affected what. The result is that it appears that I've fixed the problem - huzzah! Ego thoroughly satisfied.

Now, back to the question of my dissertation . . . now that my data is collected and I've begun the analysis process, should I use narrative analysis or discourse analysis, or some combination thereof? Hmm, maybe I should check on those brakes again . . .

Accessorizing

I had a free half-hour between finishing my work for the day and having to pick my daughter up from daycare, so I ventured over to the local bike shop, Revolution Cycle, just a few blocks away and did some accessorizing. I don't mean girlie-girl shopping for shoes and fashion scarves, I mean accessorizing my poor naked bike. Who I shall name Mike.

My poor naked Mike has had nothing but his birthday suit since the day I brought him home, and it was about time I finally got some of those things that'll make commuting easier on me. Here's a breakdown of what I bought:

Something to raise my handlebars = $25
A bell (it's the law in Edmonton) = $6
A set of front-and-back fenders = $50
A bike rack = $25
A pair of panniers = $80

All told, with tax, I spent just under $200 accessorizing. The good news is that I can use the bike rack and panniers to store my stuff so I won't get as much of that sweaty-backpack-back going on. It'll come in especially handy when I actually start work and will be hauling a change of clothes, lunch and snacks, water bottle and coffee mug, and whatever else back and forth every day. I'm also really excited about the fenders, because I've had the pleasure of riding in the rain twice already and it left . . . unpleasantness . . . up the back of my pants and all over my backpack. Good thing I wasn't going through a field of manure (luckily, we don't have too many of those in downtown Edmonton).

I still have to accessorize further once the colder weather hits - I'll need good gloves, probably some waterproof pants to wear over my work pants, front and back lights for the bike, and I'll probably invest in some studded tires, too. Then I'll get to deal with the fun-times awesomeness of changing bike tires. The skinny ones, at that. Sigh!

The easy part was buying the stuff, especially with help from the good employees at Revolution Cycle. The hard part was putting it together. It wasn't physically difficult, it was that I had no idea what it all was supposed to look like, and whatever instructions I had (just for the fenders, nothing else had instructions) didn't include pictures of the whole bike. So I was running back and forth between the front porch, where Mike lives, and my living room, where my computer is, constantly looking up pictures of what fenders and bike racks look like properly installed and trying to recreate that on Mike. It took me two hours to do everything, and by the end my hands were very greasy - somewhere between chips and KFC kind of greasy (though I suspect that dipping one's hands in a large vat of oil will still result in slightly less greasy hands than after eating KFC).

My camera is broken so I can't take a picture of Mike, now that he's all dolled up and rarin' to go. As soon as I've got a picture, though, I'll be sure to post it here! Now I can't wait to try him out tomorrow . . . yeeee-hawwwww!

UPDATE: A helpful person at BikeWorks suggested I check out Mountain Equipment Co-op next time I need to buy something for the bike, as it's less expensive there. Also, in lieu of a photograph, here's some video of Mike accessorized.

The Bike

I started researching routes long before I got my bike - the routes even factored into where I bought my house when I moved in June. Should I get something near the east end of Whyte Ave, where my entire commute would be along a busy commercial-residential-university corridor, or go with something a little farther away from the university in the west end with a commute along less busy roads? I opted for longer route, less busy roads, mostly because I die a little inside every time a car speeds past me while I awkwardly pedal away at 20 km/hr in the curb lane.

I bought my bike - a Schwinn Circuit XT 700C - a few weeks ago from Canadian Tire. I know, I know, it's not a proper bike store, and when I had to get a tire replaced within a couple days of buying it, the poor service reminded me why so many people opt for a more expensive bike at a bike store - the service, the expertise, the selection. I also briefly checked out my options at BikeWorks, aka Edmonton Bicycle Commuter's Society, where they sell used and donated bike components at very reasonable prices. While I admired the price points (about $100 for a full bike), the work I'd have to put in to building one myself was too daunting for a first-time bike buyer like myself.

So I went with Canadian Tire, a compromise between easy and cheap. I ended up with a bike that probably doesn't fit me very well (I have basically no clearance between my vajayjay and the bike frame when I stand with my feet on the pavement) and doesn't appear to have adjustable handlebars (which really, really sucks given that I could use another inch or more in stem height, leading to neck and arm strain). At least a stem extension can help with the handlebars - I'm stuck with the size of the frame.

The bike was advertised as a hybrid - having the thin, fast wheels of a road bike but the more upright riding position of a mountain bike - which my web-research suggested was the kind of bike I should be looking for. However, some web-reviewers of the bike suggest that it's more of a straight-up road bike, given how frail it is. No curb-jumping for this bad-boy! Especially since I'm at the very top end of its recommended weight limits, I'm very cautious about any curbs, potholes, and cracked pavement I encounter on it.

The Schwinn was within my meagre budget - I got it on sale for $240, regular $320. It came with no fancy goods - no fenders, rack, or any of those useful accessories that will make daily bike commuting a realistic option - so those are things I'll have to spend extra for. The saddle is not the softest thing I've ever sat on (that would probably be my cat) and has caused some serious ass-bone bruisage, but my ass bones are developing some nice callouses so daily riding is becoming less like barebacking an old curmudgeonly donkey through the Grand Canyon. That's a technical term, by the way.

So far, I really have no complaints about the bike. It's light and fast, which is nice for someone new to biking and horrendously out of shape because it allows me to cruise along at fun speeds without lung-puncturing effort. Unless I hit an incline, in which case, I inch that much closer to death.

Having read some other useful blogs about commuting year-round through brutal Canadian winters, I've determined that my skinny little whipper-snapper of a bike will be useless once the snow starts to fall. When that happens, I intend to wrap it up and put it in the basement to hibernate through the cold months while I grind out my winter commutes on a well-equipped mountain bike. By well-equipped I mean front and back lights, full-length fenders, tire chains - oh yeaaaah, tire chains, I'm going all out dollface - and whatever else I might need to survive.

So, that's my bike! I wonder if I should name it. It only seems right. I'll think about it. Any suggestions?