2011, the first 6000 miles

I reached the 6000-mile goal yesterday morning, on an errand-running trip in Saint Matthews. I was riding the Vanguard, pulling the Burley trailer.

When I got home from that errand, I decided it was time to put new(er) tires on the trailer. The original ones were showing the effects of some misalignment issue that I had not gotten around to resolving. I took the wheels off the trailer for the first time since Jenn found it at Goodwill, and discovered that someone had installed the quick release skewer springs incorrectly, which prevented the axle seating correctly in the frame. I also found that both hubs needed to be cleaned and repacked with grease, so I fixed those issues before reassembling the trailer. It pulls a bit better now. I'm not certain the alignment is right, yet, but I'll work on that more soon.

Our fourth New Rider Clinic began last night. We have a much smaller group of students, but I'm good with that. This group will be a lot of fun, I think. I often ride the Globe to classes, to enable me to better demonstrate things in ways that students can copy on their own bikes. Jenn rode her Vanguard to class last night, which gave me a chance to compare my dyno-powered light to her NiMH-powered light (which is the same model as the one on my own Vanguard, and the one I moved from my Globe to her Globe until I can get her a dyno light). The dyno light is not as bright by a large margin. I got spoiled on the battery light--and I LIKE having that much light. However, the dyno light's pattern is better in terms of not blinding other road users (I have the asymmetric version). I'm okay with that, especially since I get the trade-off of not having to keep track of battery charge status.