Bicycling

1-19-2008

I haven't updated in a while so here is what is new. In late November I took a nasty fall on some ice and decided that I needed a new bike that could handle winter conditions better than my racing style road bike. I bought a 2008 Kona Jake  and put crank brothers mallet pedals and some planet bike freddy fenders on it. it is a wonderfully sure footed bike and it handles really well on ice and snow. It is noticeably slower than my GT but not sliding around on ice is worth the heavier wheels.

11-2-2007

10-3-2007

Since classes have started I have been averaging about 50-60 miles per week commuting and a few more miles on top of that on the weekends for fun. This exercise seems to have done great things for my attention span in class, making it easier to wake up on my way to classes. I've also started to ride my bike along the gallup park trail an the b2b trail with my camera in order to take pictures on the weekends. I just hope the weather holds out for a few more weeks so I can get pictures of the fall colors in this manner.

9-23-2007

I went to a local Bike shop yesterday. I picked up some red bar tape and some bar end flashing lights....its getting dark out earlier these days. The bar tape was a pain to install with the lights, but the red looks awesome and the lights are a nice touch and add a ton of rear/side visibility at night. The guy at the store was very helpful and talkative. He assured me that many people Bicycle to work  in Ann Arbor year round. He said that he recommends fairly narrow tires to cut through snow and slush, and described his approach to keeping warm in freezing bicycling temps. He suggests wearing a synthetic whicking under layer, with a long sleeved synthetic whicking top. over this he recommends a gore-tex windbreaker/rain jacket. for the legs he recommended long underwear and gore-tex rain pants. Apparently one is MORE likely to sweat like crazy in the winter and this makes the whicking clothing more necessary. He recommended starting the ride feeling cold because one's body temperature will rise rapidly, and he further recommends shedding layers along ones rout to keep cool. Finally he mentioned a January 15 bike ride downtown that is held each year for to prove that cycling in Ann Arbor is indeed possible. This event sounds cold but awesome.

9-4-2007

I finally found the problem with my headset. It turns out that the top headset nut and locknut were stripped so it would lose tension over time fairly rapidly. This has been driving me crazy for a year now, it is wonderful to get that problem solved once and for all.

6-22-2007

I have commuted to work by bike twice now. Once this past Tuesday, and  once the Tuesday before that. The ride is 6.5 miles from my house to the lab. By far the worst part of the ride is on the way to work, because the humidity in the morning is terrible. It takes me about 10 min to recover from the ride before I can start getting real work done. The ride home isn't nearly as bad (maybe its downhill, or maybe I just don't have to work afterwards). I hope to be able to bike to work at least once a week for the rest of the summer, and I hope to increase that number to 2 or three times a week if I can.

4-30-2007

I enjoy bicycling for excercise and transportation. I also enjoy tinkering with machines and bicycles in particular. I volunteer in my school's volunteer bike shop, where I have learned to a fair bit about bicycle maintenance, especialy for older bilkes. I prefer Road bikes for their speed and I personaly find the droped bar position more comfortable when riding. I currently ride an entry level road bike with few notable features. I am becoming interested in trying cyclocross style bikes for their versatility, especialy in poor weather conditions. My dream bike would have a road style geometry, with disc breaks (for poor weather), and slightly wider tires for a smoother ride. I would love to be able to do some light trail riding and comuting on it as well. Cyclocross bikes seem to best match this description in general.  Example bikes that I am interested in are the Lemond Poprad Disk, and the Trek portland.