Brews you can use

I rode the Schwinn to work today. It was a much better and less physically taxing ride than the last commute. The repacking job might have done the trick! Of course, it may have something to do with the ~27 mile brisk group ride I did on Saturday with time to recover, or that the temperature was a pleasant 20s or 30s instead of single digits with -10°F wind chill, or some benefit of the fixed gear. Y’know, little details like that….

It was an interesting adventure… The fabled mystical connection between fixed-gear cyclist and bicycle hasn’t developed yet: for the first few miles, it was more like the bike would clear its throat pointedly and try to toss me in the air when I tried to coast. That only happened about five times, then my legs relaxed a bit more, and kept moving. Since they kept moving, they kept pushing a little bit, and I made very good time home, a roughly 12 mph average speed. I wasn’t too tired, although my legs were a little shaky after a half hour of near solid spinning.

I need to get fenders on this bike before I do that again. I hadn’t needed them before, but today’s ride was a mixture of slush, puddles, and puddles of slush with occasional patches of dry pavement (or ice, which at least has the decency to stay put on the road), a lot of which wound up in a nicely-defined brown line down the seat of my pants. Of course, I had taken my spare clothes from the office home a couple weeks ago, since I hadn’t been using them. I just tried not to walk away from too many people at the office. That worked OK, but fenders are more effective

Look who’s helping me watch the game:

cute, but makes it tough to go get beer and chips

That is all..

Well, I finally got around to repacking the hubs on the Schwinn. The wheels seem to rotate a bit smoother now, but only the next long-ish ride will tell if the hubs were a problem.

Or rather, it would if I didn’t go all MVT on this and start changing multiple things at once. When I went to reassemble the bike, I couldn’t resist putting on the fixed cog, so now it’s an overhauled fixed gear. I just had to take it for a quick test ride.

I only went around the block, but it was a bit of an adventure. I coasted for about 20 feet getting out of the alley, which isn’t a good thing if you don’t have a freewheel. The cog wasn’t secured, and unscrewed most of the way, but I spun it back on with the pedals, “floored it” and it seemed pretty secure from then on (once again 270 lbs. mashing on a pedal proves to be some serious mojo — use wisely ). It started feeling more or less natural about the time I pulled back up to the garage. I’ll need to give this ride another try sometime soon.