More commuting to work
I've done the commute three times now (it's been really wet the last couple of weeks), and now have the ride down to 21 minutes, which is nice.
First commute to work
This morning was my first bike commute to work ever. Not just to my new American job, but ever (I've always lived too far from work until now -- being a bike ride away from work was one of the criteria for the apartment in the US). The ride was rather pleasant, and involved very little on the road stuff (just getting onto the bike path near the apartment) -- 27 minutes, 7.7km, maximum speed of 33 km per hour. There is a lot of room for improvement here -- we didn't go the most efficient way, I am relatively unfit at the moment not having ridden for a month, and Andrew is learning how to use cleats which made for a bit of laughter. A nice ride though, and I'm pretty happy with how it went. I'll be riding more in the future.
Back on the road again, nearly
Andrew and Sarah's air freight arrived on Saturday, and thanks to their kindness that means my bike arrived too. I reassembled it on Sunday, and went for a short test ride, which was a mistake as it reminded me how much fun riding is. Now I need to find time to ride here, despite the fact that it appears to want to rain all of this week. I'm considering bike commuting and just getting wet.
Bike crash
More details later, but I had a badish bike crash on Wednesday night, and spent a lot of yesterday at doctors and being xrayed. More details when I get the time to write them up... [icbm: work]
What’s that grinding noise?
Dad I were riding a week or so ago, and I had just come down a nice hill where I had been going over 50 kilometres and hour... Towards the end the brakes on the rear wheel started to make a grinding noise as I slowed down. I'm a bit of a bike newbie, so it seemed to me that there were a couple of options: my brake pads were worn out; the brakes had over heated; or there was grit stuck under a pad. We stopped and had a look, and the pads seemed to have heaps of rubber left on them, so we went for the grit theory. This was reinforced by the ride home, where the grinding stopped after a little while. Time passes and I have the same experience last night. Except this time the grinding happens all the way home, so I decided to take the brakes apart when I got home. It turns out that the brake pads were worn out, and that I had been damaging the rear rim. I don't think the damage is too bad - -I've probably reduced the life of the rim a little, but it's still usable. The…
Two weeks of being sick
And 31km travelled. Not too shabby given I couldn't breathe and had goo coming out of my head. I feel quite unfit riding now though, so I need to put some work into getting back into things. James talks about commuting to Google, which is currently of interest to me so I'd like to hear more about the practicalities of commuting in Mountain View if possible. For instance, are their off road bike paths, do American drivers try to kill you, and how far is Jame's commute on the bike each way? I'm not sure I really care if commuting to work by bike is cheaper, I only want to own one car in the US if I can (I have two here), and I like the idea of living close enough to work to be able to ride there. [icbm: home]
100km week
At the start of last week I set myself the goal of riding 100 kilometres during the week. Despite a couple of rainy days and being busy, I made it... I'm very proud of my little self now. [icbm: home]
Mont 24 hour race
The Mont 24 hour race (a mountain biking event in Canberra) is coming up. I'm thinking about coming along to take some pictures... Hopefully they'll be as nice as this one taken by Big Headed Simon. [icbm: home]
75 kilometres last week
It would have been more, except I was away on the weekend. I haven't gone riding yet this week -- it's been too wet. [icbm: home]
A 50km week
I went about 50km this last week... I can only say about because my bike computer just reset itself while I was down at the shops -- losing the odometer along the way (it said about 190km). Oh well. All of that riding was errands and travel to and from uni, with only one 13km pleasure ride. [icbm: home]