September is almost over!

I've been riding the Globe to the New Rider Clinic that Jenn is teaching, in part to have a bike that is a bit more like the bikes the students are riding. ALL the members of this class are riding road bikes, which is something of a first for me. I'm used to seeing a hybrid or three and a mountain bike or two--one guy in our last class had a BikeE recumbent bicycle. Jenn rode her Vanguard two weeks ago, and her Globe last week and this week.

Riding that bike at night is starting to be a hassle for her. The headlight bracket I rigged isn't working so well--her headlight is heavy enough that it points down after the bike goes over a bump or two. I already have the hub for her dyno system on hand, and expect the headlight to arrive tomorrow. I should be able to rebuild her front wheel on the dyno hub this weekend or early next week, so that she will be able to leave the battery behind by next Thursday evening. I may even mount her a set of Ergon grips by then, so that she can enjoy the comfort they offer.

On the Ergon grips thing: I found a problem with them, or, more accurately, with the bar-end plugs Ergon supplies with their grips. They don't fit smaller inside-diameter handlebars well. The plugs Ergon supplies with their grips have a core surrounded by fins that are supposed to fit inside the end of the handlebar. This makes the bar look a bit neater, and helps reduce the chance that a handlebar would act as a corer if I land on it in a crash. Some grips are closed-ended, which covers the end of the bar, but Ergon grips are not. The "fins" on their bar plugs are brittle enough that they break off easily, and the plug won't stay in the end of the handlebar.

For a while, I was noting seasonal firsts. I didn't get around to noting on here that last Friday (or Fried-day, as I'm wont to spell it) I rode to work in full rain gear for the first time this fall. I even used my winter shoe covers to keep my feet from getting horribly wet. Of course, I am discovering that my rain pants are not as good as I thought they were...

My total bicycle miles for 2010 stood at 5744 and some tenths. I expect to surpass that number in CO2 miles some time Sunday or Monday. I already have just shy of 6300 bicycle miles for 2011. Maybe next year I'll get to do some more club riding and boost those numbers even further.

It has been observed that sometimes life gets in the way of a bike ride. Such was the case for me this weekend.

Not that it was a bad thing, by any means. I was one of at least five bike shop guys on the course during the 2011 Bike to Beat Cancer, a fund-raiser for the Norton Cancer Center. There were over four hundred registered riders, and at least three hundred were on hand for the event. Having so many mechanics meant that we would have very little work to do--the riders on these events have done a much better job over the last ten years about having bikes fit for the purpose than in my earlier experiences doing similar work for the Old Kentucky Home Tour--in 2001, one other mechanic and I worked until dark on bikes that were found wanting attention by their owners on the first day, and I was working on bikes the second day before daylight--we did work (meaning more than just helping put air in tires) on probably ten percent of the bikes on the course! From what I gathered talking to other folks, the "fix-it" rate was less than five percent for this event.

Jenn had volunteered to help them with registration on Friday evening and Saturday morning. When she was done, I was getting ready to head out to my first rest stop assignment. She asked to ride along rather than ride her bike home, and I agreed, as it would give us some time together even if much of that time was focused on me fixing bikes or getting to a place where I was needed for a bike repair. It worked out well.

Our plan for today was to go to her folks' house for a few hours--have dinner, play some sort of kitchen table game, socialize, and such. We had some time this morning, so we went out to eat breakfast--by bike, as the eatery is near the Hurstbourne Parkway/I-64 interchange which is easily reached from our house (she has a cousin that works there, so we get to visit with her while we are there eating).

Coupled with riding to work most of last week, riding errands on the Raleigh Thursday morning and early afternoon, and riding to breakfast, I have been able to reach a new personal best: 6200 miles for 2011 YTD. On my way home from work tomorrow, I will pass the 5600-mile mark for my CO2 miles. I figure that my CO2 mile log will pass my 2010 total miles record some time next week.

Even so, my monthly totals for the last few months have been lower than last year's numbers. I'm not sure why this is so, although if I were concerned about it, I could go back and look at my logs and see what I was doing last year that I'm not (apparently) doing this year. Looking at the monthly totals chart on mycyclinglog.com, it appears that I was riding a LOT this time last year--more than just to work and back. Almost ninety percent of my mileage this year has been "instead of driving a car" time instead of "club" miles or recreational miles.

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.

today in my history

Today is my stepfather's birthday. Jenn and I got to enjoy dinner with my stepfather, my mother and sister. Dinner was paella (Yum!) with sangria to drink, followed by an amazing cake that I'm not enough of a foodie to describe well. It was a good time to celebrate my stepfather as a person.

Today is also the twenty-fifth anniversary of my last motorcycle ride. I still remember riding it at a moderate pace on the road through Sleepy Hollow, and feeling uneasy about over-correcting when I realized I wasn't leaning hard enough into that curve, looking at the edge of the road and the grass beyond, thinking I'd have enough room to slow the bike to the point that I could safely return to the pavement.

I didn't see the tree stump hiding in the grass and leaves. My front wheel hit it just left of center, from what I could tell when I went back to examine the site a week or so later. I bent the frame of the bike badly enough that the bike--a Yamaha 360cc four-stroke--was a total loss.

It was a heck of a helmet test, too. The next thing I remember after the realization that I was about to leave the pavement was standing, looking at the road, my helmet to one side, my sunglasses to the other side and the bike behind me in the weeds, thinking, "What the heck just happened to me?"

Examination at a "doc in the box" found that I had a concussion. I got to spend a night in hospital for observation. I was scheduled to show for work at UPS the next day--which got put off for a week. I didn't have any medical insurance at the time, which made the event one that left a lasting impression on my job choices ever since. Fortunately, my bills were not as bad as they might have been. I was able to work out a payment plan with each of the agencies involved in my care.

There are several little stories surrounding my hospital stay. Perhaps I'll share them in the next few posts.

A few years later, I decided it was finally time to destroy the helmet I had worn on my last motorcycle ride. I had gotten a bit better with a hammer by that time, and figured that setting the helmet on a concrete floor and striking it with a 40-ounce dead-blow ball peen hammer would do something to it. Ten or twelve hits, as hard as I could swing that hammer, did far less damage to the helmet than the one impact with my head inside the thing.

It has not been difficult for me to justify wearing a helmet since then, either.

late summer catching up post

I've taken almost two weeks off from typing anything. I've found that many of the thoughts I wanted to express were not worth the time to put here, and haven't done anything about coming up with bigger thoughts.

That said, I'll toss out a few thoughts, small and smaller, in no particular order:

The 34th Old Kentucky Home Tour happened over the weekend. The weather was near-perfect, if not absolutely perfect. Few riders had enough mechanical difficulty that they needed help from the various bike mechanics on hand (although there were a couple of broken spokes discovered Saturday morning, and I hadn't brought means to make replacements). The Tour's riders have come a long way from the 2001 event, when two mechanics fixed over ten percent of the bikes in use that weekend (I know this because...), working until after dark on Saturday and starting before daylight on Sunday to get folks' bikes working again. There were two crashes to my knowledge, but I don't have accurate details on either to share, other than that one factor in one crash was that the guy's tires were beyond worn out (I've used the term "thread pattern" to describe tires like these before).

Immediately after the Tour, a few people got on the list server and praised Club President and Tour Director Andy Murphy for his job, one mentioning hurdles Andy had to overcome to make it happen. The tone of the email could have been interpreted to imply that some of the hurdles had to do with the volunteer cadre. I wonder whether that poster was referring to the numerous problems that arose because Andy Murphy abruptly resigned his post on May 9th, leaving the volunteers wondering if there would even BE a Tour this year? Or was he referring to the damages done to sponsors, some of whom left in mid-May? Or the extra work the Sponsor Liaison had to do to find replacements for those sponsors? Or that Murphy refuses to (or is incapable of) recognize that there is much to be done in terms of repairing the damages done by his abandonment of the Club and its beloved Tour? Or, well, the list goes on.

This aside from the fact that the poster who was cheering so hard for Murphy on the list was also the same guy who irresponsibly asked that the remains of the Club's Executive Committee consider having Murphy succeed himself as Club President, which had the direct effect of keeping any other potentially stronger candidates from offering to serve (this during a particularly tense Club general meeting in May).

On to more amusing things. My teammate on the Ergon Commuter Team, Jeff Moser, put up his comments on the Ergon GR2 grips he's been using this season. As my readers know, I like my Ergon grips quite well. It's good to read Jeff's comments, especially since he has had a favorable experience with them.

Also more amusing than mud-slinging about the Tour: As of Thursday evening of last week, I had pedaled over 5900 miles in 2011 to date, with over 5300 of those miles utilitarian in nature. By the end of this week, I will surpass the original goal of 6000 miles for 2011, and be on my way to the revised goal of 8000. I could ride less than a mile a day for the rest of the year and still break that 6000 mile mark!

In my role as a cycling educator, I tell students that we steer our bikes by leaning them, and control the lean with the handlebars (steering mechanism). We control the balance of the bike by leaning it in and out from under us. Pondering on this during my morning commute today, I realized that training wheels on kids' bikes are a bad idea. I already knew that things like the Specialized HotWalk are better learning devices than bikes with training wheels, but wasn't sure why. It occurs to me that on a bike with training wheels, the rider steers with the handlebars, instead of leaning the bike, which is counter to how it works when the training wheels are removed. It takes those young brains a bit of trial and error before they learn the tactic. Putting the kid on a bike without pedals gets them doing that from the start.

Speaking of education, we have one more New Rider Clinic to do this season. It starts this Thursday.

I'm slipping!! Well, maybe...

August is the second month this year that I've turned in fewer miles than the same month in 2010--July being the other. In the past month, there were two Saturdays and three Sundays that I logged zero bike miles, not to mention two week days (in the same week, no less). Seven days in one month that I didn't ride is not that unusual for me, but apparently I usually ride more on the rest of the days than I did this past month. Even so, six hundred ninety-six miles in a month is not reason to beat on myself.

For July of this year, I missed last year's record by twenty-five miles or so. I was about seventy short for August 2011 compared to 2010.

On the other hand, I've already ridden more miles this year than in all of 2010, with four months yet to go. I broke that record on my way to work this morning.

A different sort of number

As the Louisville Bicycle Club Vice President for Education, I oversee the Club's education program, which aims to raise the skill level of cyclists throughout the community. Our education program also has an advantage for the club, in that it brings us new members who contribute mightily to the club's other programs.

Last year, we expanded the New Rider Clinic program to three sessions of eight classes each, up from two sessions. We had a great group turn out for the Wednesday evening series at Iroquois Park, perhaps celebrating the first year for that alternate evening.

Last year, we also gave students a new incentive for completing the class: Every student rider who attended at least six of the eight weeks, and who passed the road and written tests for the League of American Bicyclists' Traffic Skills 101 course earned a one-year membership in the Louisville Bicycle Club (or one-year extension of existing membership) and a Club jersey. We awarded memberships and jerseys to something like thirty-five or forty people in 2010.

For 2011, the teaching year got off to a rough start. Two of the first three or four nights of the May/June class got rained out--one with torrential downpour and high wind AFTER we assembled (I eventually found out that everyone had gotten home in the right number of pieces...). An ongoing computer problem hampered my efforts at organization, and I was unable to get my head out of my behind enough to do things correctly the last night of the class. A couple days later, I learned of the deaths of a good friend and a cousin, further disrupting my efforts to recover from the disorganized manner in which I mishandled that class. I assisted David Wittry some with his Wednesday evening series at Iroquois, and substituted for him one night--the night we had to cancel the last drill we planned and get folks home before the tornado came along and mangled a bunch of barns at Churchill Downs (among other damage caused that day), just a few miles north of where we were.

We recovered from those hurdles for the most part, though. About two dozen folks graduated from those two classes. Then the July/August class began.

Jenn sat for the League Cycling Instructor seminar in April of this year. To be a full-fledged LCI, she has to teach a couple classes under supervision of a seasoned instructor (it's okay for me to be that instructor) or co-teach with another LCI-IT. I offered her the chance to teach this class herself as much as possible, with my presence as supervisor/mentor/helper. She started with close to thirty students, with perhaps forty folks dropping in and out of the class over the eight week session. Her retention rate? Twenty-six folks earned their certificates and jerseys last night!!

Numbers yet again!

A bit of other stuff, but first, the numbers.

This morning, as I pedaled to work (and pondered the C-J editorial board using the word peddling instead of pedaling...), I broke a new record for myself. Well, to be honest, every time I swing a leg over a bike I seem to be setting a new personal record, but to have pedaled over five thousand miles instead of driving by this time in the year is something of a milestone.

Yes, that's right--five thousand miles of bicycling instead of driving. I've accumulated a bit over 5600 bicycle miles for 2011 YTD, which is almost a personal record in itself, let alone that there are still four months remaining for the year (last year's 5700 miles was a personal record for a full year). With four months to go, I suspect that 8000 miles for an annual total is possible.

I know folks who have ridden more, of course. Still, a personal record is a personal record.

I had set my goal for the year at 6000 miles. According to mycyclinglog.com, I need to ride about three miles a day to reach that goal. It has been fun to watch that number drop faster and faster as I approach the 5500 mile mark, but I'm going to overshoot that goal in a few weeks.

Thursday evening last week, Jenn called to tell me there was a puddle of anti-freeze under the front of the truck when she came out of the office. Having gone through some fair bit of cooling-system repairs a year and a half ago, I knew that the radiator had a pinhole leak and would eventually need to be replaced. Based on that, and on seeing the puddle once the truck got home, I bought a radiator for it, installed same, then dug out the pressure tester to make sure things were in order before filling the system with water. Ready, fire, aim. I should have done the pressure tester bit first. That hissing noise I heard as I watched the pressure reading drop wasn't coming from the radiator, of course, since it was new. It wasn't coming from the freeze plugs I hoped had failed. Oh, no. It was coming from the edge of the head gasket. Okay, do some math. Head gasket set, with intake gaskets and others needed for the change will cost about $150. It would probably take me four or five hours to change the gaskets. My Haynes manual for this truck is in a box of books packed before our move to the current house, and it would take me more time to find it than a replacement would cost ($15 or so).

Some other math: If I really want to make the truck road-worthy, the head gasket fix would probably be best replaced with a replacement engine. The transmission (the third one for this truck...) will probably last another twenty to forty thousand miles before its synchronizers give up--a common malady for this transmission. The truck needs tires by this winter. The air conditioning does not work--who knows how much that would cost to fix--and as a result, the defroster is far less effective than it might be. Those are the high points.

When I bought this truck, I had most recently owned a Thunderbird Super Coupe. THAT was a fun car. When I wrecked it, though, I had some time to think about its replacement, and found that I was driving far less than I had been when I bought the T-bird (I was riding to work pretty often by then). When I was driving, I was usually hauling a bike or three. I was usually alone or with one other person. I didn't want to futz with connecting my trailer every time I hauled a bike somewhere. The Ford Ranger I eventually bought was a good choice for me then, and it's remained a good choice in the eleven-plus years I've had it. Sure, it's had its problems--the transmission died in 2005, and its replacement died on me in Virginia the following spring. I've replaced three of the rear spring mounts in the last two years. The clutch installed when the first transmission died didn't last as long as it should have (I've had clutches last 150,000 miles on other vehicles). Still, though, it's been handy to have a small truck instead of, say, a sedan or microcar like the Smart (much as I am intrigued by the Smart).

I'm not able to go car-free. There are too many times I want to haul a kayak, or several bikes, or something. Jenn is not ready to go car-free, nor would I try to make her do so (despite that she likes riding to work much of the time).

We haven't decided what to get to replace the truck. A sedan is a likely option, given that I could also buy a Draftmaster rack for hauling the various bikes around. I still have the utility trailer I built to haul bikes when my car was a Toyota Celica Supra, and I could build sides for it easily enough (the better to move my younger stepdaughter to and from college). Jenn would be happier with a sedan than a truck, I suspect, based on conversations we've had to date.

Decisions, decisions.

two weeks since my last post? Sheesh!

I've now had my dyno hub and light for two weeks. I've ridden home from the new rider clinic with it twice, although I haven't had much more opportunity to use it. I like it so far. It's not as bright as the CygoLite Dual Cross Pro battery light sets I'm accustomed to using, but the light placement is better, so I think I'll be fine with it. I may put one of the Dual Cross lights on a helmet for more ability to get motorists' attention, but then again I may not.

Last weekend, we had a little storm come through town. Louisville fared better than some--there was a small matter of a stage light truss collapsing in Indianapolis and killing some concert-goers there--but many folks in the area were without electricity for three or four days. Our power was out for forty-eight hours or so. The second half of that time we used a borrowed generator to power the refrigerator and the CPAP machines Jenn and I use when we sleep (pressurized filtered air being WONDERFUL for keeping apnea at bay and giving one a respite from allergen-filled air that is common in our area).

It looks as if I will break the 5000-mile mark of bicycling instead of driving by the end of this month. We'll see. The Globe, with its Ergon grips, has a bit more than two thousand miles on it. The Vanguard has a bit more than 1850 miles for the year to date. The Raleigh, with ITS Ergon grips (and now pedals) has a bit more than 550 miles for the year to date. The Screamer, which hasn't been out since RAIN, has something like 750 miles on it for the year. I have about 125 miles on Bacchetta bikes (my Strada and Jenn's Giro 26) for the year.

I had set a goal of 6000 miles for 2011, and will likely reach that goal some time in September. I'm going to have to set a new goal at some point, and think my next goal will be 7000 CO2 miles for 2011. I'm over half way there already. Almost 90% of my miles have been utility-based rather than club miles or leisure miles. I don't do much riding for the heck of riding these days.

In other news, my mother entered three of her artistic quilts in the State Fair. Two of them earned red ribbons (second prize). Sadly, I don't have a link to pictures of the quilts to share here. They are on her facebook picture page. If I can figure out a way to link them here, I will. They are pretty neat quilts. I'm quite impressed with her art--it's her first time entering in this sort of competition, and she has been making quilts like this for about a year and a half. I have a couple of her works hanging in my house (one was given to Jenn as a birthday gift, the other to both of us during the December gift-giving season). I like looking at them as I move around my home.

More light conversation

I've been doing some reading on dynohubs recently, as I got ready to select the hub and light I bought for the Vienna. One thing I was pleased to learn is that the DynoHub on the Raleigh will power any of the modern lights--indeed, it will supposedly power the headlight/taillight combinations from Supernova and others.

I don't really see myself using the Raleigh for as much night riding as I once did, especially now that I have a really, really nice headlight on the Globe Vienna, so my old idea of rigging a converter and voltage regulator to the output from the DynoHub and powering headlight batteries now seems far too complicated. All I have to do is mount an off-the-shelf headlight that has a standlight capacitor (as does my Supernova E3), and I'm set. The E3 has an internal voltage regulator, so it accepts the output from the Raleigh's hub without complaint (or so I'm told). Maybe I'll find out some day. In the mean time, it has my state-of-the-art-circa 1995 VistaLite lead-gel battery with two halogen lights set, that got me through a season of commuting from my folks' house near Long Run Park to my then-new job at some bike shop in Middletown...

Here's how the bike looks now:

It looks a little busy up front with three headlights, but I can't bring myself to remove the stock lamp fixture. If I had the right bulbs for it and the stock taillight, they would probably work. I checked the hub several months ago with a volt meter, and got a nice, steady signal from it.

En-Light-ening, behind the scenes

Other recent purchases worthy of note for commuter-types: I was toying around in the Quality Bicycle Products online catalog the other day and happened upon the Portland Design Works Fenderbot taillight. Some claim the PDW 'bot series to be far superior to my old standby the Planet Bike SuperFlash rear lights, and I'm sure they have reason to think so. I still like the SuperFlash, and have at least ten of them in service on various bikes and trailers. I also have some of the Radbot lights--two on my Globe, one on Jenn's Globe, and one on my Bacchetta Strada (at the moment--it was on Jenn's Globe until we added her seat bag containing her spare tube and other essentials). The bag on Jenn's bike takes up enough room that a second taillight would not fit on her seat post.

I'm a fan of having two taillights--typically over/under, typically one on flash/one on steady (unless in a group of cyclists, in which case I'll go to one on steady and avoid causing problems with a flasher). The idea is that the flashing light gets the attention of other road users coming at me from behind, and the steady one makes it easier for them to get a distance fix on me. If one goes dark from battery failure as I ride, hopefully the other will remain alive.

The Fenderbot appealed to me as a possible fix to have more taillight on Jenn's bike, then. I got a couple of them, figuring on adding one to my Raleigh as well.

The Fenderbot requires that one drill two holes in the fender--one for the attaching bolt/nut, the other for the anti-rotation pin. PDW thoughtfully provided a drill template disguised as part of the (recyclable) packaging, to enable one to get the holes in the right place relative to each other. Installation would likely require removal of the rear wheel, due to the nature of most fenders and close clearances. The light looks like it would work on formed fenders like the Planet Bike stuff or steamed board fenders (i.e. bamboo fenders). It has a different lens than the Radbot, but the LED looks about as bright. This is the PDW image of the light:

...and the Fenderbot on my Raleigh--note also the Ergon pedals:

I've been thinking about what to do with the headlight set I've removed from my Globe, now that it has a dyno light. I toyed with the thought of mounting it on a helmet--the better to roast the retinas of motorists who wrong me on the road at night, or dissuade them from pulling out in front of me from a driveway or side street. I then remembered that Jenn rode home from this most recent New Rider Clinic using the headlight on MY bike--her headlight is on her Vanguard, not on her Globe. As mentioned, her front cargo platform makes headlight mounting a challenge--handlebar-mounted headlights get blocked if she puts a typical bag-load of work stuff on the platform. A little tinkering with the helmet bracket I got for the CygoLite led me to this solution, attaching the helmet mount to her deck with zip ties:

She'll be able to see where she's going at night, now. Even if she has a lot of stuff on her cargo deck.

En-Light-ening

For years, I considered dynohub light systems too expensive for my needs. Over the last two years, though, I've been rethinking that. Prices have dropped a bit, which has helped. Seasonal daily use of the CygoLight Dual Cross Pro light sets I bought at the end of 2009 has been educational as well.

I still like the CygoLite stuff, and will keep the systems around. I'll probably rig one on the tandem full-time, as the battery can be left on its charger for extended periods without over-charging (or so I gather from the instructions). That bike hasn't been out since we got back from RAIN, but we will probably use it some in the coming months, and having the ability to ride it after dark is appealing. The PVC light mount is almost to the point of being figured. Version 2.3, the current one, has taught me most of what I need to know to build version 3.0.

The first bike to get a new dynohub was the Globe, mainly because the most readily-available hub at the moment was a Shimano Alfine, generally considered the better electrically of it and the SON from what I've read so far (the SON is apparently more robust mechanically, and is available in a version that will work with the 20" front wheels on our Vanguards). The Alfine comes in black, much as did the model T Fords, and the only bike I have that would look right with it is the Globe. Oh, yeah, Jenn's Vanguard would look fine with a black hub, but the Shimano hub is not recommended with her 20" front wheel. For that, Jenn's Globe (silver disc brake hub) and my own Vanguard, I'll be getting SON hubs (eventually). The headlight I chose is the Supernova C3 multi-mount, as it is simplest to mount on this bike (basically involved using the bolt provided with the light, turned around from the orientation of the bolt attaching the fender to the fork crown). The light is just above the front fender, which is apparently about the design intended height from the ground. I'm looking at this for Jenn's Globe, which has the complication of the front cargo deck that sits very close to the fender. I may get the Lefty mount for her bike instead, but haven't decided. I noted on Peter White's web site that vertical orientation of these lights is important--the lens needs to be right side up for proper light distribution as well as the shell being right side up for weather protection.

The Globe now has its new hub, which required a Shimano-compatible center-lock disc to replace the Avid disc originally on that bike. New disc means new pads, and also meant I needed to burnish in the new front brakes before riding any distance. All that adds up when considering the cost of the light set, especially given that I have three CygoLite sets already in the fleet (at wholesale price, but still...). It will take a while to convert all the bikes.

I assembled the hub into my existing rim on Tuesday evening, and connected the light to the hub prior to taking the bike out to burnish in the new disc and pads. I haven't ridden the bike since then aside from a brief (two blocks or so) check ride to see how the light looks on darker roads. I think I'm going to like this light. The beam pattern is even and well-designed (I got the "glare free" model that is apparently certified as legal for use in Germany--it limits the light bleed into other road users' eyes). I'm looking forward to seeing how this does in use. I'm also looking forward to moving the battery pack and such from the other light system off the bike, but I might decide to mount it so that I can use it as a helmet mounted light (the better to dissuade folks from coming out into me from side streets or driveways).

It's AUGUST already!

Seven months of 2011 have elapsed. I broke the 5000 bicycle miles mark a few days ago. Two of the four New Rider Clinics have wrapped up. Jenn is acting as primary teacher for the third and will for the fourth as part of her certification as a League Cycling Instructor. Life is pretty good, despite the heat of summer being oppressive as always (and it is getting to me more this year than in past years for some reason).

Despite the actions of the miscreants in our nation's capitol, we seem to still have a country left. Hopefully this will be the case in a few weeks, when the illegitimate holders of power decide to manufacture another hypocritical "crisis" to justify their paychecks (and overblown self of entitlement...). I've long referred to our nation's capitol as Washington, District of Concubines, and the whoring out of the GOP to the baser levels of society continues to justify the name.

And, since I have time to say so, I've now had my Ergon pedals for two weeks. I've ridden the Raleigh a few times with these pedals, and like them quite well for short rides (like less than eight or ten miles one way).

Given that I tend to wear Vibram Five-Fingers shoes when I'm not pedaling a bike, I had to try the combination right away. My first ride on this pair of pedals was to the New Rider Clinic on Bowling Boulevard, a short ride with the new riders, and the ride home--about nine miles altogether. I was probably even been pulling a trailer at the time, but my log doesn't indicate either way. I am liking these pedals with the soft shoes (Image borrowed from the Ergon web site).