Given how quickly my weight goes up and my mood goes to shit if I stop biking, so I’m stick with my carfree lifestyle. People think I’m even weirder than before. Most of the summer, I was able to get away with no extra gear because it was going to be warm enough and not raining for months on end. Eventually it started getting cold, so I stuffed an REI wind/rain jacket in the backpack. Now I have to keep a pair of rain pants for the rainy season, too.
I have this platonic mental model for what the optimal pair of commuter rain pants ought to be. They would be super lightweight and just go over your existing pants and crumple into a very small space. But all I could find was running pants with a liner. So that’s what I’m using. They can go over existing pants, or I can just wear them alone. And I can stuff the whole works in my bag still. The pants are working OK so far. They’ve got enough overhang that my shoes don’t get too wet. There’s not much more I can do, apparently. The shoe covers are designed primarily for people who clip in or ride clipless and I don’t.
I clearly need a front fender, as I got sprayed in the face. So I put in an order for a snap-on fender and a waterproof helmet cover from Bike Nashbar but the helmet cover isn’t compatible with my helmet and the snap-on fender is missing an important part. So I went to Walts and picked up a nearly identical one for about the same price and I’m returning the one I got from Nashbar.
I should have realized that there were other ways you could screw up a bike light design. See, the Nashbar-brand ViewPoint light I was using advertises itself as being a 1 Watt Luxeon Star. I had Performance Bike replace it when I left it there for an adjustment. But I don’t really trust it, especially because it’s missing a screw. So I decided I needed a backup light and purchased a Cateye HL-EL320 as a backup. Upon installing stuff, I then discovered that the HL-EL320 is actually brighter than the ViewPoint, even though it’s fairly close to the bottom of Cateye’s range. I suspect that it’s because Cateye either has better lenses, more efficient electronics, or an even more modern, yet not 1W Luxeon Star LED. I was hoping that all Cateye lights would wrap around the stem yet point forward, but I think only the EL410 does. So I have a Minoura Besso light holder on my front fork now so that I can have the ViewPoint as a backup (and it shut itself off one ride and I didn’t even notice the difference… that’s much much brighter a low-end Cateye is).
My boss is a self-described bike-snob and he refuses to touch anything Performance Bike.
I did check the EL320 against a full-watt-Planet-Bike-Blaze at the store and the blaze was at least as bright. Meanwhile, the actual LED unit in the EL320 is a tiny little SMT LED and it’s actually embarrassingly tiny. Clearly, whoever Performance Bike hired to make that LED wasn’t very smart.
I’m driven by an urge to be seen at night, as opposed to the urge to ride with neither reflectors nor lights like a Ninja (apparently, this is called being a Fred) so I’d love to replace the front reflector with the white version of the Cateye TL-LD500, but that doesn’t seem to be sold in the US.
So, how’s the biking?
I did take a spill in the rain. It kinda sucked. I banged up one knee real good. I’m really used to dry pavement, where the front brake is the one you want to use exclusively, so I locked up the front tire and went flying and then had to bike home with a scraped up knee. It looked worse than it was. I couldn’t kneel too well for a few days.
Since the rear tire was looking really questionable, I replaced the rear tire today. I’ve had the tools for tire work in my saddle sack the whole time, but I’ve never actually used it because somehow I magically don’t get flats. I was scared about what would happen when my magic ran out and I found myself on the side of a road changing out tires, so I decided to change the tire myself. Which I was able to do pretty well on my own. I had read up a few times about how to do it, but I kinda knew that theory and practice were two different things. I read Sheldon Brown’s website and decided to get a slightly thinner slick tire for the back wheel and I’ll probably stick with slightly more tread and wider tires in front whenever I wear out the front tire.
My boss, of course, won’t rest till he convinces me to get myself a road bike with drops and skinny tires and probably aerobars. Because he’s the second competitive triathlete I’ve worked under.
I still need a good pair of biking glasses, however. The cold morning air on my eyeballs is not a pleasant feeling.