On Sunday May 7 I went on a late evening ride. I knew I was going to be riding after dark and I was looking forward to it. riding in the dark on country roads was one of the fears in my life that I overcame due to my desire to bike commute. Riding around in the city is fun at night, but going down a country road when it is pitch black is a thrill. I have a wonderful lighting system on my bike that generates power for my head light and tail light. I have no problem seeing when it is dark and I am visible to the full extent of the law to motorists who are not driving distracted.
My hip is getting stronger and I am really appreciating the fact that I use to ride 50 miles on a one way bike commute. I seem to always get the wow factor after I have accomplished something amazing only when I can no longer do what I thought at the time was not enough. I was recalling this fact when I remembered one of my favorite songs, These Are The good Old Days by Carly Simon. It took me a while to fully understand the meaning of this song, but as I was riding my bike on Sunday I had the time to reflect on being in the moment and appreciating the beauty around me right now. I am so glad to be able to get on a bike and ride again.
I had a really good bike fit a few months ago. The folks at Podium Multisport in Atlanta know how to assess your physiology and they understand cycling and bikes at a level that I have never seen in my 40 plus years of cycling. I went into the bike fit with a favorite bike in mind that I wanted, but as with any experience with experts I came away learning something that I did not expect, titanium is still a good material for building bicycles. My old Serotta was carbon steel, so I figured that my next bike would be a carbon fiber bike. I rented a Trek Domane 4.2 last year when I was visiting Austin, Texas for a wedding. I rode the bike for about 200 hard miles in 4 days. I hit all of the chip seal roads and steep hills that I use to ride when I lived there and I was quite pleased with the ride and fit. I have an unusual body anatomy. I have the torso and arm reach of a typical man who is 5'6" and the legs of a typical man who is 6'3". I am ...
Red Schwinn Typhoon I was writing in a Google+ Bike Commuting Community about my first bike (that I can remember) and my memory wandered into my childhood in South Central Los Angeles where I grew up. I had this red Schwinn Typhoon bike when I was 7 about 1959. I remember the day that I took the training wheels off and some Hispanic kids a few houses from my house propped the bike up and shoved me down the hill. Wow I was going so fast that I forgot that I was riding without the training wheels. Leave it to the Internet to give me a photo of the bike as I could only imagine what it looked like up until today. I remember taking the fenders off and learning how to change a tire on this sucker with my dad's crescent wrench. As a kid I had a red Schwinn Typhoon I would ride it on the sidewalk in front of my house at 12203 South Main Street at age 7. There is a hill on Main Street and my brother, friends and I would ride really f...
I cleaned my bike last Sunday. I decided to take some pictures of the rust spots on the frame. Even as I consider my options for getting a newer lighter bike I want to preserve the Serotta for bike commuting. Under the chain stay rust Under chain stay rust Under bottom bracket rust Under bottom bracket rust Under the top tube rust Under the top tube rust I really love this bike and it pains me to see the rust encroaching on the frame. Hopefully when I do get a new bike I can then take this bike apart and have it restored. I may consider getting it powder coated.
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