obfuscated.org

Today is Bike To Work Day. There are bike “pit stops” all over LA, all doing different things. My goal this morning was to check out the three Pasadena stops.

I rolled in to the REI-sponsored stop at the Allen gold line station at about 8:30. They said that they had talked to a lot of riders today.

Gift bags and free mechanical checkups were the order of the day. Also picture taking, it seems. I declined the checkup, but gladly accepted the gift bag.

Quite excited about the REI coupon — new helmet? wheel truing stand? — and the water bottle/patch kit/sun screen. We get out to Claremont often enough that I’ll definitely be able to use the Jax coupon. Those Clif bars look yummy as well. I’m not at all sure what to make of the TMZ-branded combination pen/bottle opener.

The Pasadena city hall pit stop looked pretty mellow from the street.

Inside, though, it was much more of a scene.

They seemed much more geared towards letting city and other very local employees know about alternative transit options. Metro and Fuller had tables set up. I think Pasadena Cyclery was holding a drawing for some sort of Gary Fisher city bike. I really wanted to hit the South Lake pit stop before it closed, though, so I grabbed the nice shopping bag they were offering and was on my way.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the South Lake stop. I rode up and down the street from Colorado to just south of California and back. Nothing. I guess it was getting on towards the end of the time they were to be there. Perhaps they packed up early?

Most disappointingly, this is what I saw when I got in today:

Oh well. I guess we won’t be getting those new bike racks after all. (We were running out of room pretty regularly last summer, and “there isn’t enough space” is a much more compelling argument than “these are crappy stands and they scratch up my down tube so I don’t want to use them.”)

Either way, though, a fun ride this morning. There were definitely more bike commuters than usual out on the road today, and it’s nice to see the city and local businesses help out cyclists. (Even if it is just marketing.)

I broke a pedal on the way in to work today.

It just snapped while I was getting started in to an intersection. I can still pedal the bike, but there’s a lot of give to it now, and I’m not entirely sure how hard I can push on it before it breaks further, which may make the last two blocks of my ride home (which is the only part that’s up-hill in a meaningful way) interesting.

The funny part is that on Sunday when I got my wheel back from the shop, I thought for a bit about putting the 20-year-old, aluminum (and completely bomb-proof) platforms that I took off the Bridgestone on to my bike. I guess I’ll be getting to that tonight.

It’s getting on winter, and in southern California that means rain. Well, it means the ominous if not particularly realistic threat of rain. Not even that: there is definitely a possibility that some time between now and next summer it may rain. And as you all know, rain means the opportunity to buy new gear for your bike. SKS fenders in my case.

Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of working on my bike after work, and the muse to wrench often strikes after particularly trying days. This leads to calamity more frequently than I’d like. This was definitely the case with the fender installation.

My first attempt was actually at the end of a very pleasant Sunday and got the front fender on without difficulty. Unfortunately I was a little overzealous with the rear fender, broke one of the little plastic guards that goes on the end of the v-brace and snapped a spoke on the wheel.

I have no spare spokes, nor do I know how to properly true a wheel — this has to change. I wonder if the bike kitchen still does wheelbuilding classes? — so I imposed upon my gracious wife to take it down to Stan’s and have it fixed.

After that was done I put the rack back on, rode it to work, had One Of Those Days, got home and decided that it would be a dandy idea to give the fenders another go. Not five seconds passed before I snapped one of the bolts holding the rack on — it was also to hold the fenders on! — right off the bike.

My best efforts to extract it with a locking wrench weren’t that hot. In fact they made the situation worse, breaking off what little was left of the bolt.

I consulted some friends and my dad and decided to invest in a left-hand drill bit to try to either drill the damn thing out or turn it out. A trip to Osh, one 5/64^th” bit, one 7/64^th” bit and twenty minutes with a drill later and I had a 7/64^th” hole through the still very immobile bolt.

My next attempt involved a trip to the Home Depot and the purchase of an Alden Pro Grabit damaged screw extractor. It’s basically a left-handed screw built on to a drill bit. It’s also not at all designed to take bolts out of bike frames: it lasted maybe half a second before it broke right the damn off.

It’s still wedged in the frame of my bike. I imagine that it will take an act of God to remove it.

At this point I was done with the whole thing. To hell with the fenders. I live in Southern California where it never rains. Off to REI for one of those dumb looking racks that just attaches to the seat post.

Unfortunate — or fortunately, depending on how you look at things — the dumb looking racks are way more popular than the old school racks that need 10,000 mount points and braze-ons and what have you, so they start about $50. Which was just enough to make me look around a bit more and discover a $5 pair of Delta Rack Mount Clamps.

These things are awesome. They hook on to the seat stay or the chain stay and let you pretend like your frame has all the mounts you need. It also lets you forget that you destroyed the perfectly good rack mounts that you already had. Anyway, about ten minutes after I got home I had both rack and fender attached.

(Pause for a moment and bask in the majesty of my high-tech bike work stand)

So now I can ride to work with my stuff, and I can avoid getting water sprayed all over me if it ever rains. Braggable. Here’s a closeup of the fully awesome Delta clamps.

Perhaps the best thing about getting the rear fender on is that I got to use my awesome reflecty tape. The night commuting is still sort of unnerving for me, so any chance I can get to be visible is appreciated.

So there you have it. cp: 1, broken bolt: 0. Also, there will from here on out be a house rule against screwing anything in to the frame of a bike without grease.

So over the weekend I got clipless pedals for my bike. (Fun fact: “clipless” pedals are the kind that you clip in to. Awesome naming.) If the internets are to be believed, I’m 1/3^rd of the way to breaking them in. The story goes that when you first start riding with them you’ll fall three times. On the way home yesterday I forgot to clip out as I pulled up to the intersection of Colorado and Michillinda. This, of course, resulted in the slow tip sideways and me on my ass in the road in front of a (stopped!) pickup. Both the bike and me (save a skinned knee) are no worse for wear, so things went about as well as they could have.

At any rate: one down, two to go. I can’t wait!

Hola, Amigos. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve rapped at ya about the bikes, so I figured I’d fire off a quick update.

I’m a little more than one third of the way done with my new years resolution. Today was my 17^th ride to/from work. To celebrate hitting the 1/3^rd mark, I took the northern route home through Sierra Madre. (Map below.) Stan recommended this route the last time I talked to him. He was totally right. The bike lane along Orange Grove and the section of Sierra Madre in Pasadena was awesome, and there were way fewer stops than my normal route. I don’t know that I’ll be taking it in to the office any time soon — the road in to Sierra Madre is, um… steep — but it’s great for coming home.

Some things I’ve learned over the past few weeks:

• I don’t enjoy riding home when it’s over 100, although the middle 90’s are fine
• Cars put out a lot of heat. It’s really uncomfortable being next to them at stop lights
• The Arboretum feels like a giant air conditioner when they’re watering the north end of the property. Which is really nice after sitting next to aforementioned hot cars.
• I need exactly one gear to get to/from the office. So perhaps I’ll get a single speed as a backup bike.
• If you’re putting a new chain on your bike, be sure to read the instructions carefully, least you destroy the chain pin. (Not that I did this. No sir. Not me. Although many, many thanks to Stephanie for taking the bike down to Stan’s and getting the chain fixed!)

Oh, I must remember to give glowing mention to the trunk rack I got a couple of weeks back. It’s a vast improvement over a backpack. No messy straps hanging all over me, no ugly sweaty back when I get to work. If you’re looking for something big enough to carry a change of clothes and a person’s worth of wallets and gadgets and keys, I can’t recommend the Novara “Deluxe” Rack Trunk quite enough.

So anyway, yeah. Yay bike commuting. I’m genuinely enjoying both not being in the car and getting outside more often. I’ve lived in the land of inordinately good weather for almost 14 years now, and I really can’t believe that I haven’t taken any advantage of that until now.

Rode in a second time this last Friday. I took a slightly different route this time, and I think it worked out really well. Part of what I’m shooting for is to ride in mostly on residential roads and skip the whole traffic bit. With a couple of exceptions — a couple of blocks on Colorado near Baldwin and Del Mar between Wilson and Hudson — I’ve more or less got it down. Something I noticed on Friday helps greatly. There are two left turn lanes at Rosemead and Thorndale, and the traffic control lines are a great place for a bike to sneak across:

Likely I could just behave like a normal vehicle, take the lane and make the turn, etc., but somehow doing that off a side road on to Rosemead seems like a less than great idea. Anyway, I don’t mind cheating in this case.

My new year’s resolution this year is to ride my bike to work at least 50 times. The first thing that I have learned from this is that I a master of excuse making. Between morning meetings, my employer’s occasional “dress like a banker” days, family scheduling, angst about being drenched with sweat at work and the good old fashioned lazy, I managed to go more than one third of the year without making any progress towards this goal. As of this week, however, I’m on my way.

The ride could not have been more pleasant. It was cool in the morning and not hot in the afternoon. Morning traffic was great. One driver waited at a four way stop and waived me through such that I wouldn’t have to come to a complete halt, which was totally cool of him. None of the cars got all up ons when I took the lane, which I did at every intersection. Exactly one car got within three feet of me. SGV drivers: thanks!

It took me about twice as long to ride — almost exactly an hour each way — as it does to drive on a bad day. (Although not an atypically bad day. Few of my drives in count as “good.”) That said, I got two hours more exercise than I would usually get, so I consider it a big time-saving win.

The home route through Arcadia’s peacock country may or may not be the best way to do things. I’m looking to avoid traveling on Rosemead or Colorado West of Baldwin, and this seemed an easy enough cut through, however I took a couple of wrong turns and ran in to some dead ends. Huntington in the morning was 100% reasonable; I’ll probably give it a go on the way home next time.

I’m planning to ride again next Thursday, and hopefully twice the week after that if all continues to go well.