Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Dark ages are nearly over

I rode to and from work today on my road bike, which I was excited about because it was the first time I have got to do that this year. Normally when it gets dark out, before I can leave the office I take the buss home. Yes, I could ride in the dark. But I do not for several reasons. One of the foremost being the buss if free (it's free for anyone who works within the city limits of Laguna Beach). There are several others as well. Ridding on PCH is exceeding dangerous to begin with. It's a narrow, winding, hilly road with mostly no bike lane. Ridding at night on PCH for me is just not realistic, but ridding a buss and taking my bike along with me is. Then I can still ride to work in the morning, and return on the bus. Which is the primary purpose of my commuter bike. My fixie is good for this purpose as well, but I use the buss to get me over some of the big ups and downs. I would not easily be able to ride my fixie to work without the buss because there are several hills between my house and office, which I consider prohibitively difficult for pre office work ridding on a fixie.
Where was I going with this? Oh, yess I rode my road bike today, which felt great. Especially after a long spell of only ridding it on the weekend. I won't allow that bike to get put up on the front of the buss, because well its just to damned expensive to being putting out on the front of a buss. The commuter and the fixie are the sacrificial lambs. It all boils down to, the days are finally gradually starting to get long enough for lots of ridding again.
I'll probably ride my fixed gear tomorrow morning though, as on my return trip I was lucky enough to get a flat. I was right at the bottom of the last hill, about half a mile from home with the apartment complex in sight. I walked until I found a nice patch of grass to fix my flat, only to then find out (at the expense of a CO2 cartridge) that my valve stem was too short for my rims.
I then happily walked home barefoot on the grass, carrying my road shoes in one hand and walking the bike with other. I traversed the newly created park on the hill leading up to my apartment complex. It's still even got that new grass smell, fresh from the carpet rolls. The funny thing is, as much as that sounds like it sucked, it didn't it was great actually. I watched the sunset, as I was happy about the fact that, I was neither in the office, on a buss, or driving. Simply bueatifull realy.

2 comments:

libertyonbikes! said...

this will be too late i'm sure..
WRENCH! for the fixie. those that have multiple bikes always forget.
until you can't get your wheels off. usually takes one time (two or three if you're me).

erik k said...

very, very good point. That has been something on my "to get list" for a while now. I have a Quick release on the front so I figure I have a 50-50 shot, at being able to fix a flat.