Very Long Commute Club - Week of 8/4/08 - "Call the SAG"
Back by popular demand, we now bring you your regularly scheduled thread - The Very Long Commute Club. Mars has been away for a while so with all credit and respect given, we're going to defrost this thread and get it started again. I've volunteered to kick us off for the month of August and after that, we'll take volunteers.
This week's topic is about learning from adversity. We all give it our best shot to get back and forth to work via our bikes, but let's face it, even the best laid plans can end up in complete frustration. Most of us who are dedicated to cyclocommuting are dependent on many things going right to be consistent. Personally, I'm thankful for every ride that I don't flat or break a spoke. There are plenty of times where we've been tempted to throw in the towel and soldiered on and other times where the last straw broke and we had to call it a day - when we had to call the dreaded "SAG wagon". Share with us what happened and how you got to your destination and since it's been a while, give a brief introduction, if you like.
nmanhipot
19.9 miles home to gym, 1.4 miles gym to office. 160-200 miles/week commuting, 20-60 miles/week recreational.
I keep a lot of junk in my flat kit, enough to get over most mechanical and flat issues. Fortunately, I've only had to call the SAG wagon once in the last couple of years. I was using halogen headlights and because of the amount of rain I'd ridden through, the circuitry of the lights got damp, corroded and malfunctioned. These were reputable, high dollar lights and I had both my bar-mounted and my helmet-mounted lights fail in the same night. It was after 8 at night in the fall and I had to pull the plug when the last light failed. Obviously the spouse wasn't too pleased about it.
When I got home, I disasembled the light heads, cleaned the circuit boards with nail polish remover and a tooth brush and then blew them dry with a hair dryer. It was mission accomplished and I was back on the road the next morning. I had the same difficulty with an HID system, but I was able to get it working using the same technique. Long term, I'm phasing these lights out am replacing them with LED systems. At this point, I think I've spent as much on lighting as I have on my commute bike.
How about you? Ever had to call for the SAG?